This study was designed to examine the ability to use prior knowledge in text comprehension and knowledge integration. The focus of the research was on effects of different degrees of subjects' theoretical knowledge in the domain of biochemistry on their comprehension of written technical materials describing experimental procedures and results, and the ability to integrate such new text derived information with prior theoretical knowledge considered by experts to be relevant to the topic. Effects of cues on the accessibility and use of prior knowledge were also examined. Pre-test questions testing the extent of subjects' prior knowledge of photosynthesis, and a "cue article" specifically designed to prime subjects' relevant prior knowledge of photosynthesis, served as cues in the study. / A theoretical model of experts' knowledge was developed from a semantic analysis of expert-produced texts. This "expert model" was used to evaluate the extent of students' theoretical knowledge of photosynthesis, and its accessibility while applying it to the experimental tasks. College students and university graduate students served as subjects in the study, permitting a contrast of groups varying in prior knowledge of and expertise in chemistry. / Statistical analyses of data obtained from coding subjects' verbal protocols against text propositions and the expert model revealed that prior knowledge and comprehension contribute significantly to predicting knowledge integration, but they are not sufficient for this process to take place. It appears that qualitative aspects and specific characteristics of subjects' knowledge structure contribute to the process of integration, not simply the amount of accumulated knowledge. There was also evidence that there are specific inferential processes unique to knowledge integration that differentiate it from test comprehension. Cues manifested their effects on performance on comprehension tasks and integrative tasks only through their interactions with other factors. Furthermore, it was found that textual complexity placed specific constraints on students' performance: the application of textual information to the integrative tasks and students' ability to build conceptual frame representations based on text propositions depended on the complexity of the textual material. (Abstract shortened with permission of author.)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.75962 |
| Date | January 1988 |
| Creators | Kubes, Milena |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Doctor of Philosophy (Department of Educational Psychology and Counselling.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 000914324, proquestno: AAINL52467, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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