Expertise Reversal Principle

Overview

The expertise reversal principle (ERP) is a concept in Cognitive Load Theory. It suggests instructional guidance beneficial for novice learners can become redundant for more knowledgeable learners. It recognises that providing too much direction can be detrimental to the learner experience of expert learners.

The expertise reversal principle highlights the importance of considering the learners prior knowledge and experience while creating an instructional design. Instructional material without this consideration leads to an extraneous load on expert learners. Thus, they have to spend their cognitive resources that could be used for more critical activities. The principle recognizes that instructions helpful to novice learners may help or even hinder the learning of expert learners.