ABSTRACT
This is a revision of the chapter on the same topic that appeared in the first edition of the Handbook, published in 1996. In the intervening years, a great many changes have occurred in cognitive theory, and its perceived relevance to education has been challenged. As a participant in, and indeed as a promulgator of, some of those changes and challenges, my own ideas and opinions have changed significantly sincewriting the earlier chapter. They continue to change-the topics are rapidlymoving targets. This has presented me with a dilemma: whether simply to update the earlier chapter by adding selectively from the last half dozen years’ research in cognitive psychology and risk appearing to promote ideas that some now see as irrelevant to the study and practice of educational technology; or to throw out everything from the original chapter and start from scratch. I decided to compromise.
