Content knowledge Flashcards
What is content knowledge?
General knowledge about topics that improves learning and recall
How does content knowledge change with age?
Older children have more content knowledge than younger children
Content knowledge affects ______ and ______.
How much children recall
What children recall
Chi (1978) found that children with lots of content knowledge…
Relate to IQ.
10yo chess experts can outperform adults with little content knowledge on the same topic - 10yo chess experts recalled and reconstructed more chess positions from memory than adult novices (9.3 out of 22 vs. 5.9 out of 22). This means that children’s content knowledge outweighs adults’ memory advantages
Not because 10yo had better IQ, as adults performed better on digit span task
Schneider et al. (1989) found that children with lots of content knowledge…
Relate to IQ.
German children with more content knowledge about soccer recalled more info from a fictional story about a boy soccer player than children with little content knowledge on the same topic, irrespective of IQ
Content knowledge acquired before and after an experience can…
Content knowledge acquired before and after an experience can affect recall of that experience.
Give an example of content knowledge acquired after an experience affecting recall.
Greenhoot (2000) - 5-7yo children heard a story about a protagonist; were later given info suggesting the protagonist was either nice or mean; when interviewed, children recalled stories consistently with the info given
Content knowledge, in part, improves recall because it allows children to…
Correctly infer info
What are scripts?
At what age can children form scripts?
Knowledge structures describing how events typically play out
3yo form scripts of routine activities (e.g. going to school)
Younger children confuse what really happened and what is in the script. By what age can children distinguish between what really occurred and what is in the script?
7yo
How do children of different ages use scripts to recall info from fairy-tale stories (Trabasso and Nickels, 1992)?
3yo neglect details about characters’ main goals and reactions and include info irrelevant to main plot
5yo consistently include all relevant info
How does content knowledge facilitate memory? (2)
Content knowledge enhances and promotes deeper encoding (tells children what info should be encoded, allowing children to focus attention on distinctive features) Spreading activation (thinking about a topic 'activates' that topic and related topics, making children aware of their knowledge)
Content knowledge improves the efficiency of strategies. How?
Spreading activation (thinking about a topic 'activates' that topic and related topics, making children aware of their knowledge) allows children to organise related info 5yo recall more accurate info, learn and use strategies more effectively, when content is familiar
