What parents can take from this research
If too much mental effort is spent on basic steps, less capacity may remain for the part of the problem that is new.
What the research found
The importance of working-memory demands and schema acquisition when designing learning tasks.
Full citation
John Sweller (1988). Cognitive load during problem solving: effects on learning. Cognitive Science. DOI: 10.1207/s15516709cog1202_4.
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