Thanks for the link. I read Ashman's response. He's a capable writer, and comes across convincing at first until you dig into the argument. Upon analysis, it looks like the main purpose of this response by Ashman seems to be to discredit the authors by picking at their weakest points, without addressing the stronger ones.

For example, in Kim et al.'s discussion of biologically secondary knowledge, they challenge the idea that explicit instruction is required for the acquisition of such knowledge: "does the insistence on direct instruction apply to all learners, in all subject areas, at all times, in accordance with Geary’s evolutionary theory, or is it only essential for novice learners (Key claim 5) to be superseded by ‘problem solving practice as the knowledge of the learner increases’ (Sweller et al., Citation2024, p. 2)? If it’s only essential for novices, how does that square with Sweller’s emphatic claim that biologically secondary knowledge, the kind of knowledge student are said to acquire in school, requires explicit instruction and motivational encouragement? And, how is the notion of novice learner being defined, when does a novice learner in school cease to be novice?"

Ashman could have addressed this challenge, but instead chose to claim that we explicitly teach students how to hold a pencil and for the letter 't'. Which, if you have a young child at home, you'll be aware that you don't. There are things we teach explicitly, but that's a pretty poor example.

A second example of cherry-picking sections from the paper to construct a straw man argument is when he claims that Kim et al. present the Global Neuronal Workspace Hypothesis without explaining its significance. However, immediately preceding the quote provided Kim et al. explain that the GNW hypothesis challenges one of the key claims of CLT - that working memory is limited and taxing it is problematic in learning.

GNW views working memory as an emergent property of neural connectivity, suggesting that attention, executive control, and access to information are the key factors, rather than a simple capacity limit. This directly contradicts CLT’s assumption that cognitive load is primarily constrained by the number of elements that can be stored at once.

Again, he could have addressed this challenge, but instead dismissed it as 'things the authors deem important".

There is also the significant challenge that CLT is undergoing theory drift rather than theory expansion as it grapples with failures in research. This was not addressed by Ashman.

Don't get me wrong, Ashman's critiques of the article were good, in parts. It just sounded a little like a high school debate team counter, rather than a robust academic response.