The Cognitive Psychology of Knowledge: Basic Research Findings and Educational Implications

Abstract

This article reviews empirical findings that implicate personal knowledge in human information processing. It cites findings in relation to intelligence, automaticity, learning, schemata activation, analogical processing, problem solving, reading, and cognitive development, and indicates ways in which the impact of prior knowledge typically is not obvious to a teacher, and ways in which prior knowledge can, at times, disrupt the learning process (especially via misconception and know-it-all effects). Educational implications, especially the Matthew effect, are discussed

Innovative Methods of Ideological and Political Education for College Students Based on Ideological Cognition Science

“…Combine the characteristics of network cognition and improve the appeal of the education mode by the official WeChat in colleges and universities. Autonomy and flexibility are the cognitive psychological characteristics of college students' attention to WeChat (Yates and Chandler, 1991), therefore, colleges and universities should adopt an open and integrated educational method (Marsh, Butler & Umanath, 2012), arouse the students' initiative, and collect educational contents and materials from them; on the other hand, colleges and universities should also take the role of gatekeepers, screening and filtering the collected materials, carrying out deep processing, and with the help of the advantages of large data, making ideological and political education more persuasive.…”

Integrating Science and Language Arts through Technology-based Macrocontexts

“…According to Yates and Chandler (1991)`cognitive theorists postulate that, in the mind, knowledge resides within sets of organized and interlinked mental schemata which can be activated by experience ' (p. 136). That is, learning involves making conceptual changes in cognitive structure by placing new information in a mental network of prior information in a meaningful way.…”

Relational realism and professional performance

“…These schemata are drawn on by practitioners to recognise, classify and deal with the problems that confront them in their workplaces (see, e.g., Yates and Chandler 1991). Amongst other things, this change has been triggered by research findings on the development of expertise.…”

“…According to this research, expert practitioners in a particular field have a repertoire of highly developed mental schemata that they have accumulated from experience. These schemata are drawn on by practitioners to recognise, classify and deal with the problems that confront them in their workplaces (see, e.g., Yates and Chandler 1991). Thus novice teachers employ general principles learnt in their teacher education course to try to analyse and solve problems encountered in their first forays into classroom teaching.…”