How do attending physicians describe cognitive overload among their workplace learners?

Area of Science:

• Cognitive psychology
• Medical education
• Workplace learning

Background:

• Cognitive load theory (CLT) explains how limited working memory capacity impacts learning.
• Health professions education (HPE) workplace settings are complex, increasing the risk of cognitive overload for learners.
• Identifying cognitive overload in real-time workplace settings is challenging.

Purpose of the Study:

• To characterize how attending physicians perceive cognitive overload in learners.
• To identify observable signs of cognitive overload in HPE workplace settings.

Main Methods:

• Secondary qualitative analysis of 42 interview transcripts from physicians (endoscopists, hospitalists, intensivists).
• Development of a new codebook for content analysis of interview data.
• Focus on teachers' perceptions of learner cognitive overload.

Main Results:

• Physicians identified four categories of behaviors indicating cognitive overload: poor task performance, non-verbal physical manifestations, verbal utterances, and interpersonal interactions.
• Endoscopists tended to describe individual examples, while intensivists and hospitalists focused on interpersonal contexts.
• Observed behaviors provide practical indicators for recognizing cognitive overload.

Conclusions:

• Four overarching ways HPE workplace teachers perceive learner cognitive overload were identified.
• Awareness of these signs can help teachers and learners recognize cognitive overload.
• Early identification of cognitive overload can facilitate interventions to support learning.