CONTRIBUTION OF CONTENT KNOWLEDGE AND LEARNING-ABILITY TO THE LEARNING OF FACTS

In three experiments the role of content knowledge and learning ability were examined in the learning of facts (pairs of an agent and an action) that were conceived as being likely pairings by experts in the domain. College students learned a list of facts about baseball players, a discourse about a baseball game, and a list of facts about music performers. They were also assessed on both their prior baseball and musical content knowledge and their paired-associate learning ability. Results revealed that content knowledge greatly facilitated the learning of facts in the relevant domain, either in list or discourse, but had no effect on the learning of facts pertaining to the other domain. In contrast, students' learning ability facilitated the learning of facts in a list in both domains, although it did not affect the learning of facts in discourse. Analyses of errors showed that only content knowledge could reduce the proportion of unlikely errors.