Experimental analysis of knowledge acquisition

The present study was designed to provide a data base descriptive of the integration and acquisition of knowledge in particular application domains. Three different learning situations were investigated: (a) remembering a text from repeated exposure to it, (b) learning a programming language in a classroom setting, and (c) learning about a research area from studying different (condensed) literature articles.

Subjects' knowledge was measured by recall protocols and/or problemsolving tasks. Subject answers were idea scored, and their growth of knowledge was recorded. Subgroups of good and poor performers were formed and compared in terms of their acquisition process.

The major findings showed that in the first study:

1. Text acquisition could be characterized as "schema growth." 2. The initial text conceptualization proved most important in predicting final performance.

3. A distinction between "integrated" and "appended" information proved fruitful.

4. Different regularities concerning integration and forgetting were established for integrated and appended information.

Results from the second study indicated that:

1. Text acquisition can be characterized as a process of "reasoning with the problem domain." 2. Knowledge acquisition entails both an increased level of comprehension of course material and a content shift in argument.

3. Increased correctness of the agreement was of surprisingly little importance.

In the third study, the role of problem-solving strategy in text comprehension was investigated by collecting "think-aloud" protocols from subjects. These verbalizations were then classified into several strategy categories. The main findings showed the following:

l. Only a very few subjects have access to or are able to monitor their own use of strategies.

2. Subjects revealing good and poor text comprehension differed in their use of certain strategy categories.

3. Contrary to recent results reported in the literature, subjects showing good comprehension did not use more strategies overall than did those subjects revealing poor comprehension.

It was concluded from this study that knowledge acquisition involves the generation, reorganization, and recognition of a "focus" as well as successive factual and integrative refinements. The specific parameters characterizing the focus and refinement processes were very much dependent on the particular types of texts used.