Ruth Colvin Clark has focused her professional efforts on bridging the gap between academic research in instructional methods and practitioner application of that research. To that end she has developed a number of seminars and written five books, including e-Learning and the Science of Instruction, that translate and illustrate important research programs for organizational training specialists.
A science undergraduate, Ruth completed her doctorate in instructional psychology/educational technology in 1988 at the University of Southern California. Ruth is a past president of the International Society of Performance Improvement and a member of the American Educational Research Association. Ruth is currently a dual resident of Southwest Colorado and Phoenix, Arizona, and divides her professional time among consulting, teaching, and writing. For more information, consult her website at www.clarktraining.com.
John Sweller is a psychologist who holds the position of professor of education at the University of New South Wales, Australia. His research interests are in the areas of cognitive processes and instructional procedures. With many others from around the globe, he developed cognitive load theory to provide a vehicle that generates instructional procedures based on our knowledge of human cognitive architecture. That ongoing, international research effort has led to the development of a large number of instructional principles that are discussed in this book. Furthermore, those instructional principles are beginning to throw further light on the very cognitive structures that generated the instructional principles in the first instance, and in the process, are potentially changing our conceptions of human cognitive architecture and its origins.
Frank Nguyen is an e-learning technology manager at Intel Corporation. He has managed the design, development, and deployment of corporate e-learning and electronic performance support systems. He holds a master's and is currently pursuing a doctorate in educational technology from Arizona State University. His research interests are in the areas of electronic performance support and human performance technology.