College Students' Memory for Vocabulary in Their Majors: Evidence for a Nonlinear Relation Between Knowledge and Memory.

Abstract

The effect of domain knowledge on students' memory for vocabulary terms was investigated. Participants were 142 college students (94 education majors and 48 business majors). The measure of domain knowledge was the number of courses completed in the major. Students recalled three different lists (control, education, and business) of 20 words. Knowledge effects were estimated controlling for academic aptitude, academic achievement, and general memory ability. Domain-specific knowledge consistently predicted recall, above and beyond the effect of these control variables. Moreover, nonlinear models better represented the relation between knowledge and memory, with very similar functions predicting recall in both knowledge domains. Specifically, early in the majors more classes corresponded with increased memory performance, but a plateau period, when more classes did not result in higher recall, was evident for both majors. Longitudinal research is needed to explore at what point in learning novices' performance begins to resemble experts' performance.

Prior knowledge in recalling arguments in bioethical dilemmas

“…In this study domain-specific prior knowledge was assessed in a way similar to that in other studies (cf. Alexander et al, 1994a , 1995 ; DeMarie et al, 2004 ; Levin and Arnold, 2004 ); since the method is appropriate there, non-significant correlations between some domains of prior knowledge and recall in this study might have other reasons which need to be considered. Perhaps the domains of prior knowledge differ in their distance to the topic.…”

“…Research on prior knowledge often is on mathematical or scientific topics (Alexander and Murphy, 1998 ; DeMarie et al, 2004 ). The advantage of investigating prior knowledge of such topics is that they are well-structured and clearly defined in terms of related topics.…”

“…In some studies participants assess their prior knowledge themselves; in others prior knowledge is assessed by researchers through questionnaires covering the understanding of broad and/or specific topics as well as the learning processes involved (cf. Kaakinen et al, 2003 ; DeMarie et al, 2004 ; Levin and Arnold, 2004 ; Clarke et al, 2005 ; Kobayashi, 2009 ; Miller and Keenan, 2009 ; Rittle-Johnson et al, 2009 ; Cromley et al, 2010 ; Schneider et al, 2011 ; Toth et al, 2011 ). Here, one can see that the definition of prior knowledge is not very clear.…”

Influence of Native Language Vocabulary and Topic Knowledge on Foreign Language Vocabulary Learning in Health Care Providers

“…Depth of topic knowledge and its relationship to vocabulary acquisition has been investigated in the native language and in general foreign language learning. De Marie et al (2004) found that native language vocabulary (English) learning could be predicted in university undergraduates by importance of vocabulary to their major area of study. De Marie et al noted that there was a threshold for predicting vocabulary acquisition and that a sufficient amount of coursework needed to be completed to have an effect.…”

“…The influence of topic knowledge on the learning of domain-related vocabulary in the native language was studied directly by De Marie, Aloise-Young, Prideaux, Muransky-Doran, and Gerda (2004) in undergraduate education and business majors. Students were asked to recall three lists of 20 general, education, and business terms.…”