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Psychological research on learning has brought forth many insights that are relevant for teachers (for example, knowledge about learning strategies). However, teachers sometimes have intuitive fragmentary knowledge that is partly incorrect. Such knowledge hinders the acquisition of psychological knowledge. Tried-and-tested interventions dealing with fragmentary knowledge remain scarce and thus a generalized categorical framework was developed to support preservice teachers to (re)organize their fragmentary prior knowledge. In the present experiment the framework group (n ¼ 23) received this categorical framework as a pretraining intervention. The control group (n ¼ 22) received similar factual information as a pretraining intervention but no categorical framework. Afterwards, all participants learned about cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies. While achieving approximately equal learning outcomes, the framework group needed less learning time (strong effect) and stated higher interest (medium effect). Overall, this study reveals that providing a categorical framework can help to heighten preservice teachers' interest in the learning material and save learning time.

Learners sometimes have incoherent and fragmented intuitive prior knowledge that is (partly) “incompatible” with the to-be-learned contents. Such knowledge in pieces can cause conceptual disorientation and cognitive overload while learning. We hypothesized that a pre-training intervention providing a generalized schema as a structuring framework for such knowledge in pieces would support (re)organizing-processes of prior knowledge and thus reduce unnecessary cognitive load during subsequent learning. Fifty-six student teachers participated in the experiment. A framework group underwent a pre-training intervention providing a generalized, categorical schema for categorizing primary learning strategies and related but different strategies as a cognitive framework for (re-)organizing their prior knowledge. Our control group received comparable factual information but no framework. Afterwards, all participants learned about primary learning strategies. The framework group claimed to possess higher levels of interest and self-efficacy, achieved higher learning outcomes, and learned more efficiently. Hence, providing a categorical framework can help overcome the barrier of incorrect prior knowledge in pieces.

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