The Importance Of Prior Knowledge In A Study

In the oxford dictionary, problem is defined as a “matter or situation regarded as unwelcome or harmful and needing to be dealt with an overcome- a thing that is difficult to achieve”.

Problem describes a wide range of situations of different importance. E.g A need to learn or study for an exam but you do not understand what you been studying or cannot recall the first topic you studied, so we can clearly say that a problem is a situation in which we experience uncertainty or difficulty in achieving what we want to achieve.

During study or reading, we want to understand the topics and we able to answer anything asked in the examination, many things during our study session my unable us to study to understand. E.g. distraction, feeling tired

Our background is a source of wisdom to many learners, we learn may be of no interest to many because of their background or prior knowledge. It is almost a cliché that people know more about topics related to their interests than they do about others. Some researchers (Asher, 1980: Tobias, 1992a) attempt to distinguish between the effects of interest and prior knowledge. Others deal with this problem simply by acknowledging the relationship in their definitions of interest. For example, Renninger (1992) explicitly identifies interest as being composed by value and knowledge. While that is an accurate definition supported by a good deal of the research discussed below, it does not clarify the fundamental problem of whether results ascribed to interest may actually be accounted for largely, or partially, by the effects of prior knowledge. Dochy (in press) reported that “prior knowledge explains between 30 and 60 percent (or more) of the variance in study results and that prior knowledge overrules all other variable” (p. 5). In view of these substantial effects, it becomes essential to examine whether the impact of interest on learning is independent of the effects of prior knowledge. Alexander, Schallert, and Hare (1991; see also Alexander, Kulikowich, & Schulze, 1992, 1993) advanced a useful distinction between different types of subject matter knowledge. They suggest that topics knowledge refers to prior familiarity with content closely related to material covered in a particular text passage or segment of instructional material, whereas domain knowledge deals with familiarity with general information in an area, even though it may not be specifically referred to in a particular