John Sweller (born Jan Schweller, Legnica, Poland, 26 January 1946)Application for Registration as an Alien (29 January 1948): Maria Schweller."We, Bernard and Maria Schweller, of Polish nationality, born at Rohatyn and Brzvchowice, Poland, resident in Australia for six years ... intend to apply for naturalisation under the Nationality and Citizenship Act, 1948-1952": Public notices, The (Adelaide) News, (Friday, 27 November 1953), p. 9.To be Naturalised: Ceremony at Prospect, The Northern Suburbs Weekly, (Thursday, 14 October 1954), p. 2.Certificates of Naturalization (Schweller, Bernard; Schweller, Maria), Commonwealth of Australia Gazette, No.15, (Thursday, 31 March 1955), p. 1069. is an Australian educational psychologist who is best known for formulating an influential theory of cognitive load. As of 2020 he was Professor Emeritus at the University of New South Wales.
Education Sweller was educated at the University of Adelaide where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1969 followed by a PhD from the department of psychology in 1972.Sweller, John (2016), "Story of a Research Program", Education Review, Vol.23, 2 September 2016. His doctoral research investigated effects of discrimination training on subsequent shift learning in animals.
Career and research Sweller has authored more than eighty academic publications, mainly reporting research on cognitive factors in instructional design, with specific emphasis on the instructional implications of working memory limitations and their consequences for instructional procedures.Sweller, J. (2003) "Evolution of Human Cognitive Architecture", pp. 215-266 in Brian Ross (ed.), The Psychology of Learning and Motivation, Volume 43: Advances in Research and Theory, San Diego, CA: Academic Press. John Sweller (1999) Instructional design in technical areas. Melbourne: ACER Press. An autobiographical account of Sweller's intellectual development is available in the "Acquired Wisdom" section of Education Review.
Awards and honours Sweller was elected a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia (FASSA) in 1993.
See also Cognitive load Educational psychology Instructional design Problem solving
References