A study examined whether students beginning a cell biology course with prior knowledge of its three areas (genetics, histology, and biochemistry) would retain that advantage throughout the course and whether achievement was influenced by the order of questions in a test. (MSE)

Considers four major decisions to illustrate the complexity of decision making about pretesting as part of the instructional process: whether a pretest should be administered; the behaviors that should be pretested; how pretesting should be accomplished; and how teaching strategies should be adjusted to pretest results. (MBR)

Following a literature review, this article analyzes the financial impact of credits for experiential learning on a major midwestern university. Both students and the institution appear to have benefited economically. Questions are raised concerning who should benefit from publicly supported education--students, society, or all three. Includes 28…

Examines the effect of prior knowledge activation on sixth-grade readers' comprehension of compatible and incompatible text. Results support the notion that prior knowledge may intefer with, rather than facilitate, reading comprehension under certain conditions. (HOD)

Reports on a study that examined the effects of prior knowledge and topic interest on the reading comprehension of seventh- and eighth-grade students. The results suggested that both prior knowledge and topic interest were autonomous factors in reading comprehension. (HOD)

Discusses an alternative framework for handling language testing and proposes some tentative hypotheses concerning principles of language testing. Suggests that taking account of both interlanguage domain engagement and contextualization in testing research, production, and interpretation allows for a richer conceptualization of the language…

Discusses what is meant by meaningful learning, the conditions necessary for meaningful learning to occur, the importance of vocabulary instruction to comprehension, and how to insure that vocabulary instruction is meaningful. (HOD)

Describes vocabulary lesson sequences that were used to teach sixth, seventh, and eighth grade remedial readers economics vocabulary from the newspaper. (HOD)

Examines the effects of providing subjects with prior information about the organization of expository passages. Concludes that a structural organizer with outline grid and that notetaking alone both reliably and markedly facilitated comprehension and recall, and that a structural organizer without outline grid reliably facilitated comprehension…

Describes two studies showing that young readers may have trouble with comprehension when text contradicts their own prior knowledge. (FL)

This research examined the images of teaching that students early in their teacher certification program had about teaching and teacher roles. These images portrayed students' expectations of teaching and teachers and aspirations for their future careers. A group of 33 student teachers from a foundational course in educational psychology…

In this theoretical essay the psychological aspects of genetic approach to teaching mathematics (mainly at universities) are discussed. Analysis of the history and modern state of genetic teaching shows that its psychological aspects may be explained using both Vygotskian and Piagetian frameworks. Experience of practice of mathematical education…

The prior knowledge that a student brings into the lecture is one of the major factors influencing teaching effectiveness. It is therefore important that lecturers are able to ascertain the level of prior knowledge and adjust their teaching accordingly. This paper adopts an iterative learning model that seeks to enhance teaching effectiveness by…

This paper suggests a three-step approach for motivating and enabling eighth graders to authentically attempt to comprehend assigned passages from their U.S. history textbooks. The steps are the following: (1) attempt to activate prior knowledge and interest in textual readings by using relevant materials and varied literary sources to motivate…

The starting point for this study was the resistant nature of prior knowledge in conceptual change from natural numbers to rational numbers observed in our previous study. Thus, in this study the effects of deliberately teaching the abstraction of the density of numbers on the number line was tested in a quasi-experimental study at the beginning…