Under some circumstances, students draw on prior knowledge that is inappropriate for the learning context. Although this knowledge is not necessarily inaccurate, it can skew their comprehension of new material.
One situation in which prior knowledge can distort learning and performance is when students import everyday meanings into technical contexts. Several studies in statistics, for example, show how commonplace defi nitions of terms such as random and spread intrude in technical contexts, distorting students ’ understandings of statistical concepts (Del Mas & Liu, 2007 ; Kaplan, Fisher, & Rogness, 2009 ). This seems to be the problem for Professor Dione ’ s students, whose everyday associations with the terms positive and negative may have skewed their understanding of negative reinforcement.
Another situation in which inappropriate prior knowledge can impede new learning is if students analogize from one situation to another without recognizing the limitations of the analogy. For the most part, analogies serve an important pedagogical function, allowing instructors to build on what students already know to help them understand complex, abstract, or unfamiliar concepts. However, problems can arise when students do not recognize where the analogy breaks down or fail to see the limitations of a simple analogy for describing a complex phenomenon. For example, skeletal muscles and cardiac muscles share some traits; hence, drawing analogies between them makes sense to a point. However, the differences in how these two types of muscles function are substantial and vital to understanding their normal operation, as well as for determining how to effectively intervene in a health crisis. In fact, Spiro and colleagues (Spiro et al., 1989 ) found that many medical students possess a misconception about a potential cause of heart failure that can be traced to their failure to recognize the limitations of the skeletal muscle - cardiac muscle analogy.
Knowledge from one disciplinary context, moreover, may obstruct learning and performance in another disciplinary context if students apply it inappropriately. According to Beaufort (2007) , college composition courses sometimes contribute to this phenomenon by teaching a generic approach to writing that leaves students ill - prepared to write well in particular domains. Because students come to think of writing as a “ one size fi ts all ” skill, they misapply conventions and styles from their general writing classes to disciplinary contexts in which they are not appropriate. For example, they might apply the conventions of a personal narrative or an opinion piece to writing an analytical paper or a lab report. Beaufort argues that without remediation, this intrusion of inappropriate knowledge can affect not only students ’ performance but also their ability to internalize the rhetorical conventions and strategies of the new discipline.
Furthermore, learning can also be impeded when linguistic knowledge is applied to contexts where it is inappropriate (Bartlett, 1932 ). For example, when many of us are learning a foreign language, we apply the grammatical structure we know from our native language to the new language. This can impede learning when the new language operates according to fundamentally different grammatical rules, such as a subject - object - verb con fi guration as opposed to a subject - verb - object structure (Thonis, 1981 ).
Similarly, misapplication of cultural knowledge can — and often does — lead to erroneous assumptions. For example, when Westerners draw on their own cultural knowledge to interpret practices such as veiling in the Muslim world, they may misinterpret the meaning of the veil to the women who wear it. For instance, Westerners may assume that veiling is a practice imposed by men on unwilling women or that Muslim women who veil do so to hide their beauty. In fact, neither of these conclusions is necessarily accurate; for instance, some Muslim women voluntarily choose to cover — sometimes against the wishes of male family members — as a statement of modern religious and political identity (Ahmed, 1993 ; El Guindi, 1999 ). By the same token, some women think of the veil as a way to accentuate, not conceal, beauty (Wikan, 1982 ). Yet if Westerners interpret these practices through the lens of their own prior cultural knowledge and assumptions, they may emerge with a distorted understanding that can impede further learning.
Research suggests that if students are explicitly taught the conditions and contexts in which knowledge is applicable (and inapplicable), it can help them avoid applying prior knowledge inappropriately. Moreover, if students learn abstract principles to guide the application of their knowledge and are presented with multiple examples and contexts in which to practice applying those principles, it not only helps them recognize when their prior knowledge is relevant to a particular context (see Chapter Four on transfer), but also helps them avoid misapplying knowledge in the wrong contexts (Schwartz et al., 1999 ). Researchers also observe that making students explicitly aware of the limitations of a given analogy can help them learn not to approach analogies uncritically or stretch a simple analogy too far (Spiro et al., 1989 ).
Another way to help students avoid making inappropriate associations or applying prior knowledge in the wrong contexts is to deliberately activate their relevant prior knowledge (Minstrell, 1989, 1992 ). If we recall Professor Dione ’ s course from the story at the beginning of the chapter, we can imagine a potential application for this idea. When presented with the counterintuitive concept of negative reinforcement, Professor Dione ’ s students drew on associations (of positive as desirable and negative as undesirable) that were interfering with their comprehension. However, if Professor Dione had tried activating a different set of associations — namely of positive as adding and negative as subtracting — he may have been able to leverage those associations to help his students understand that positive reinforcement involves adding something to a situation to increase a desired behavior whereas negative reinforcement involves subtracting something to increase a desired behavior.
Implications of This Research
When learning new material, students may draw on knowledge (from everyday contexts, from incomplete analogies, from other disciplinary contexts, and from their own cultural or linguistic backgrounds) that is inappropriate for the context, and which can distort their interpretation of new material or impede new learning. To help students learn where their prior knowledge is and is not applicable, it is important for instructors to (a) clearly explain the conditions and contexts of applicability, (b) teach abstract principles but also provide multiple examples and contexts, (c) point out differences, as well as similarities, when employing analogies, and (d) deliberately activate relevant prior knowledge to strengthen appropriate associations.
