Solving the global STEM educational crisis using Cognitive Load Optimization and Artificial Intelligence–A preliminary comparative analysis

Maj · Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education · 2024 · education · 10.29333/ejmste/14448 · record Maj2024-solving-the-global-stem-educational-crisis-u
tag layer · index · concepts · authors · עברית
Where this record's text came from. faceted 2026-08 by reading the locally held text (pdftext); every evidence string verified as an exact substring of that text before merging. Claim type is 'method' because the paper's own headline contribution is CLO as a learning theory plus methodology; a 'critique' reading is equally defensible for the ChatGPT half ('The overall output imposes a high cognitive load with cognitive gaps, posing a risk of student misconceptions'), and the enum allows only one shape. method is 'practice-report': there is no controlled experiment, only (a) the author's qualitative analysis of two ChatGPT outputs and (b) narrative summaries of previously published CLO teaching cohorts, with pass rates and student quotes reported but no comparison statistics for this study. Only one claim_relation is recorded: the paper contrasts itself repeatedly with Constructivism and Behaviorism, but the PDF-extracted text of those passages is badly scrambled by column interleaving ('‘constructing’ in is not seen as In the Constructivist learning theory learners play an their own meaning. active role...'), so no clean self-relating sentence naming Constructivism could be quoted verbatim. Likewise the CLT-definition sentence citing Bannert 2002 and Valcke 2002 was deliberately NOT recorded as builds-on, because it defines CLT without stating a relation to this paper. Note also that the source text is scrambled throughout by two-column PDF extraction, which limits which sentences are quotable at all. 2026-08-14 schema-0.3 pass: every quote verified as an exact substring of the staged text and anchored at merge time; concept terms verified present; every edge endpoint an existing node.
This record’s own method is review, and the tags below follow from that. A review’s findings, quantities and statistics are things stated IN this paper, and some of them report results obtained elsewhere. 1 tag on this page names the author the result belongs to. Measured across every review in this corpus, 81% of a review’s tags carry no citation at all — most of them are the review speaking. The corpus does not adjudicate the rest: read an unmarked tag as a claim this paper makes, not necessarily one it made first.
How to read this page. The article itself is not reproduced here — this paper is not cleared for redistribution, so what follows is the tag layer alone. The evidence sentences are withheld with the article. The table at the foot lists every tag the record carries; each row names the facet it belongs to, and the whose words column says whether the tag records the paper's own wording or the tagger's sentence about the paper. Every tag links to each other paper in the corpus carrying it. The machine-readable edition of the same thing is the TEI file beside this one, where the tags live in standOff, and the article is at its publisher via the link below. When we have changed our mind. Some entries in the table begin with a word in capitals and the reason for it. EVIDENCE CORRECTED — the finding still stands, but we had quoted the wrong sentence from the paper, and the quotation has been replaced with the right one. RETRACTED — the entry itself was wrong; it stays on the page, marked, with the reason, rather than being deleted. WITHDRAWN AND REPLACED — the entry was wrong, and a corrected version of it appears in the entries below. Each mark carries its own reason, in brackets, because the reasons differ from one entry to the next. An entry we have WITHDRAWN is removed from this page and kept in the record, with its reason. A line reading Audit and a date is a later re-reading of the entry against its whole sentence: DOUBTFUL means it was kept, and the reason says what is loose about it. Quotation marks inside the tagger's sentence. Where a tag is the tagger's own sentence, a phrase in quotation marks inside it is borrowed from the paper — the tagger's wording around it is not. The paper's own sentence is the evidence quote for that row; on this page it is withheld with the article, and the article is at its publisher. Nothing inside quotation marks anywhere on this page is ours: if it is quoted, it is the paper's. Whose words a concept carries. A concept entry records a term the paper itself uses, so the term, the sense given for it, and its evidence are the paper's own words, quoted where the paper fixes them. This is the opposite of a sense entry in the tag table, which is the tagger's sentence about how the paper uses a term. Where a concept entry could not be grounded in the paper's words, the entry says so on its own row.
Other fields define these differently the same word, defined another way in another discipline
standard deviation 3 fields · schema 2 fields

Tags on this paper

Every tag the record carries, each linking to every other paper in the corpus that carries it. A tag appears here whether or not its words occur in the article — the spans below are only the ones a sentence in this paper licenses. Of the 3 concept tags on this paper, all 3 are grounded in a quoted sentence.
cognitive load optimization science of learning SOLO taxonomy short-term (working) memory has limited capacity, so high-intrinsic-load material overloads it and blocks schema construction in long-term memory cognitive gaps in the material raise cognitive load, students fill the gaps with their own incorrect conclusions, and the resulting misconceptions then handicap further learning because existing learning theories are qualitative and open to interpretation, material quality tracks the individual educator's skill, which produces wide variation in pedagogical quality and pass rates Cognitive Load Optimization (CLO) Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) intrinsic cognitive load (ICL) schema relational knowledge misconceptions pass and retention rates descriptive statistics evaluated using descriptive statistics mean standard deviation review

Legend

relation to other workclaim_relationshow this paper stands to another: agrees, contradicts, extends, qualifies
claim typeclaim_typethe shape of the claim: existence, mechanism, method, critique, prediction, null
concept edgeconcept_edgesan asserted relation between two concepts, with the sentence asserting it
conceptconceptsan idea the paper works with, quoted where the paper uses it
content tagcontent_tagsa finding, definition, quantity, statistic or variable named in the paper
limitationlimitationswhat the paper says its evidence cannot support
mechanismmechanismshow the reported effect is said to come about
methodmethodhow the paper produced its evidence
phenomenonphenomenonthe effect or regularity under study
sensesensesa distinct use of a term, quoted where the paper fixes it
transfertransfersa method or concept carried in from another field

The paper

The full text is not reproduced here. This article is not cleared for redistribution, so the page carries the tag layer only. Its evidence sentences are withheld; the grounding status remains with each tag, and the article itself is at https://doi.org/10.29333/ejmste/14448. The reading view exists for the papers whose licence permits it.

Every tag on this page

claim_relations 4 · claim_type 1 · concept_edges 1 · concepts 3 · content_tags 27 · limitations 12 · mechanisms 3 · method 1 · phenomenon 1 · senses 3 · transfers 1

Relations on this page carry a quotation for the claim. Where a relation was separately evidenced — and so tested against the vocabulary for its type — the row says so; none of 1 relation here carry that mark. The rest are the tagger’s reading of the sentence quoted beside them.

This record holds no controls. A layer is empty when the tagger recorded nothing in it — which is not the same as the paper having nothing to record.

facettagfieldconf.whose words
claim_typemethod
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claim_typethe paper's words
phenomenoncognitive load in STEM instructional materials
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phenomenonthe paper's words
methodreview
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also in: review
methodthe paper's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[0]the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[1]the tagger's words
mechanismsmechanisms
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mechanisms[2]the tagger's words
limitationsCLO is time consuming to implement, which the author offers economies of scale to offset.
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what this limits: the practicality claim: HOWEVER, CLO IS TIME CONSUMING TO IMPLEMENT
limitations[1]the tagger's words
limitationsThe effect of ChatGPT on learning outcomes was not determined by this study.
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what this limits: any learning-outcome claim: FURTHER WORK IS NEEDED TO DETERMINE AI CHATGPT'S IMPACT ON LEARNING OUTCOMES
limitations[2]the tagger's words
limitationsThe new data in the paper come only from analysis of printed materials, not from a new controlled study.
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what this limits: the evidential basis of the paper: NEW DATA PRESENTED IN THIS PAPER STEMS FROM AN ANALYSIS OF PRINTED MATERIALS ONLY - no new controlled study
limitations[3]the tagger's words
limitationsCLO is a detailed methodology that is time consuming to implement
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duplicate of: limitations[1] · what this limits: the same scope as limitations[1] - implementation cost
limitations[4]the tagger's words
limitationsCLO is new and its detailed procedures and metrics must be learned before use, which costs time
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what this limits: the adoption claim specifically: CLO IS A NEW LEARNING THEORY WITH A DETAILED METHODOLOGY (PROCEDURES, METRICS ETC.) THAT IS TIME CONSUMING TO USE
limitations[5]the tagger's words
limitationsThe effect of ChatGPT on learning outcomes is not established by this study
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duplicate of: limitations[2] · what this limits: any learning-outcome claim: FURTHER WORK IS NEEDED TO DETERMINE AI CHATGPT'S IMPACT ON LEARNING OUTCOMES
limitations[6]the tagger's words
limitationsOnly text-based ChatGPT is considered
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what this limits: the modality covered: THIS PAPER IS RESTRICTED TO TEXT-BASED CHATGPT
limitations[7]the tagger's words
limitationsThe evidence offered for the method is one cohort given three lectures, and the cohort is described as students whose first language was not English.
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what this limits: the claim that this methodology addresses a global STEM educational crisis: the reported experiment is one cohort of 33 non-native-English-speaking students given three lectures in remote online mode
limitations[8]1.0the tagger's words
limitationsThe AI half of the proposal is repeatedly marked as not yet established, in the same table that presents the framework.
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what this limits: the artificial-intelligence component of this proposal: the paper states ChatGPT output is not necessarily coherent and contiguous and that further work is needed on its role in instructional design and assessment
limitations[9]1.0the tagger's words
limitationsIts effect on the outcome the paper cares about is explicitly still open.
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what this limits: any expectation that adding ChatGPT improves learning outcomes here: the paper states further work is needed to determine its impact on them
limitations[10]1.0the tagger's words
limitationsThe comparison class is characterised rather than measured: existing theories are described as qualitative and subjective, and the description is the ground for replacing them.
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what this limits: the contrast between this quantitative theory and existing ones: the existing theories are characterised as qualitative, subjective and dependent on the educator's skill, rather than compared on a measured outcome
limitations[11]1.0the tagger's words
limitationsThe internalisation mechanism the framework depends on is supported only as 'some evidence', with further work stated as needed.
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what this limits: the claim that CLO schema diagrams are internalised into long-term memory: the paper reports only 'some evidence' for it and hedges the downstream scaffolding with 'may'
limitations[12]1.0the tagger's words
transfersthe design of instructional material is recast as a combinatorial optimization problem — identifying, ranking and sequentially ordering interdependent elements to minimise a measured cost function (cognitive load)
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transfers[0]the tagger's words
conceptscognitive load optimization
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concepts[0]the paper's words
conceptsscience of learning
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concepts[1]the paper's words
conceptsSOLO taxonomy
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also in: SOLO taxonomy
concepts[2]the paper's words
sensescognitive load optimization - claimed as a QUANTITATIVE science-of-learning theory, defined by modelling relational knowledge as schemas optimised for the lowest cognitive load
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senses[0]1.0the tagger's words
senseslearning theory - the paper draws a line ChatGPT is placed on the far side of: a useful pedagogical tool, but not a learning theory
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senses[1]1.0the tagger's words
sensesexisting learning theories - characterised as qualitative soft-science principles with subjective guidelines open to interpretation, which is the stated ground for a quantitative replacement
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senses[2]1.0the tagger's words
claim_relationsextends → Cognitive Load Theory (CLT); de Jong, 2010
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
claim_relations[0]the tagger's words
claim_relationsextends → Cognitive Load Theory (CLT), de Jong 2010
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
claim_relations[1]the tagger's words
claim_relationscontradicts → Constructivist learning theory
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claim_relations[2]the tagger's words
claim_relationsbuilds-on → SOLO taxonomy (Biggs & Collis, 1982, 1989)
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claim_relations[3]the tagger's words
concept_edgescognitive load optimization —is-a→ science of learning
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strength of the relation: 1
concept_edges[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsdescriptive statistics
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content_tags.statistics[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsmean
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also in: mean
content_tags.statistics[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsstandard deviation
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content_tags.statistics[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsChatGPT 3.5's output on hubs versus switches imposed a high cognitive load with cognitive gaps, risking student misconceptions.
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content_tags.findings[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsChatGPT's explanation of the two sine equations used degrees in one and radians in the other, a potential source of confusion.
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content_tags.findings[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsEvery STEM curriculum item examined across school, college and university level was non-sequential and contained cognitive gaps, i.e. carried a high cognitive load.
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content_tags.findings[2]the tagger's words
content_tags64 business students who had passed three STEM IT units all scored zero on ten simple relational-knowledge questions.
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content_tags.findings[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsCLO consistently achieved high pass and retention rates (typically 100%) together with very positive student satisfaction.
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content_tags.findings[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsCognitive Load Theory lacks a reliable quantitative metric for intrinsic cognitive load.
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content_tags.findings[5]the tagger's words
content_tagsNinety-nine percent of the students in the comparison preferred CLO-based learning over the standard method.
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content_tags.findings[6]the tagger's words
content_tagsChatGPT works across STEM disciplines and levels but is an educational technology rather than a learning theory, and gives no assurance of pedagogical quality.
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content_tags.findings[7]the tagger's words
content_tagsCognitive Load Optimization (CLO)
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content_tags.definitions[0]the tagger's words
content_tagsCognitive Load Theory (CLT)
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content_tags.definitions[1]the tagger's words
content_tagsintrinsic cognitive load (ICL)
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content_tags.definitions[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsschema
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also in: schema
content_tags.definitions[3]the tagger's words
content_tagsrelational knowledge
Quotation withheld — this record is not cleared for redistribution. The sentence is in the paper at the link above.
content_tags.definitions[4]the tagger's words
content_tagsmisconceptions
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content_tags.definitions[5]the tagger's words
content_tagsSOLO taxonomy
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also in: SOLO taxonomy
content_tags.definitions[7]the tagger's words
content_tagspass and retention rates
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content_tags.variables[2]the tagger's words
content_tags99% — share of students preferring CLO-based learning to the standard method
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content_tags.quantities[0]the tagger's words
content_tags64 ... zero — business students tested on ten relational-knowledge questions after passing three STEM IT units, and their score
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content_tags.quantities[1]the tagger's words
content_tags100% — pass and retention rates for engineering mathematics taught by the CLO method in remote access mode
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content_tags.quantities[2]the tagger's words
content_tagsmean of 4.09 with a standard deviation of 0.739 — rating of the Relative Benefit factor by the Chinese graduate-student cohort taught with CLO
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content_tags.quantities[3]the tagger's words
content_tags210 — business studies graduate students whose behavioural intention to adopt CLO was evaluated with TAM and UTAUT
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WHOSE RESULT THIS IS: students’ behavioral intention to adopt/use CLO (Nuangjamnong, 2022). - THE RESULT OR THE NUMBER IS THE CITED WORK'S. Read, not swept - the trailing-citation shape is about 55% precise and the main clause is what decides it. Second reading pass over the 25 candidates left after 2026-08-25 11:39: 9 marked, 16 refused. 'The behavioral…' - a cited study's cohort and result.
content_tags.quantities[4]the tagger's words
content_tags29% ... 34% — respondents in a national online-learning report complaining of lack of engagement, and of inadequate academic interaction
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content_tags.quantities[5]the tagger's words
content_tagsone million — additional STEM graduates called for by the US President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology
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content_tags.quantities[6]the tagger's words
content_tags33 — non-native-English students taught three remote lectures with CLO materials in the reported experiment
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content_tags.quantities[7]the tagger's words

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