The papers of this special issue demonstrate that cognitive load theory provides the framework for investigations into cognitive processes and instructional design. The genesis of Cognitive Load Theory emerged from an international symposium organized at the bi-annual conference of the European Association for Research on Learning and Instruction in 2001 in Fribourg, Switzerland. Most of the papers are based on contributions to that symposium and discuss the most recent work carried out within the cognitive load framework. As a whole, this issue is demonstrating that cognitive load theory is continuing its role of using cognitive psychology principles to generate novel instructional design procedures.