Learning From History Text: The Interaction of Knowledge and Comprehension Skill with Text Structure

Although prior knowledge and reading-comprehension skill have both been shown to influence learning from text, recent research based on the Kintsch (1988) model of text understanding leads to the hypothesis that the development of the text-base representation of text contents should be a function of reading-comprehension skill and not of prior knowledge, whereas the development of a situation model should be a function of the individual's prior knowledge and not of the reader's comprehension skill. Furthermore, the extent to which knowledge and comprehension skill influence learning from text was hypothesized to be a function of text contents. Using fictitious historical accounts, it was found that learning from an expanded text in which causal relations were made explicit was related to reading-comprehension skill and not to prior knowledge, whereas learning from an unexpanded text that did not spell out causes was a function of prior knowledge and not of reading-comprehension skill. The results were considered in relation to (a) the Kintsch model; (b) the interaction of knowledge, reading skill, and text contents; and (c) the operation of dispositions in text learning.