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How Does Prior Knowledge Impact Students' Online Learning Behaviors?

Article  in  International Journal of Cyber Behavior · October 2011

DOI: 10.4018/ijcbpl.2011100101 · Source: DBLP

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PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 1

RUNNING HEAD: Prior Knowledge and Online Learning

How Does Prior Knowledge Impact Students’ Online Learning Behaviors?

Kirsten R. Butcher
Department of Educational Psychology
1705 E Campus Center Drive
University of Utah
Salt Lake City, UT 84112 USA
kirsten.butcher@utah.edu

Tamara Sumner
Institute of Cognitive Science
Center for Innovation and Creativity
1777 Exposition Drive, Campus Box 594
University of Colorado at Boulder
Boulder, CO 80309 USA
sumner@colorado.edu

Author Note

The authors wish to thank Nicole Turnidge-Halvorson and Shaw Ketels for their

contributions to this research. This article is based upon work supported in part by the National

Science Foundation under Grant Numbers IIS-0537194 and DRL-0835454.

Correspondence should be addressed to Kirsten R. Butcher, Department of Educational

Psychology, 1705 E Campus Center Drive, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT 84112.
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 2

Abstract

This study explored the impact of prior domain knowledge on students’ strategies and use of

digital resources during a Web-based learning task. Domain knowledge was measured using pre-

and posttests of factual knowledge and knowledge application. Students utilized an age- and

topic-relevant collection of 796 Web resources drawn from an existing educational digital library

to revise essays that they had written prior to the online learning task. Following essay revision,

participants self-reported their strategies for improving their essays. Screen-capture software was

used to record all student interactions with Web-based resources and all modifications to their

essays. Analyses examined the relationship between different levels of students’ prior knowledge

and online learning behaviors, self-reported strategies, and learning outcomes. Findings

demonstrated that higher levels of factual prior knowledge were associated with deeper learning

and stronger use of digital resources, but that higher levels of deep prior knowledge were

associated with less frequent use of online content and fewer deep revisions. These results

suggest that factual knowledge can serve as a useful knowledge base during self-directed, online

learning tasks, but deeper prior knowledge may lead novice learners to adopt suboptimal

processes and behaviors.

Keywords: online learning, prior knowledge, Web behaviors, comprehension

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 3

How Does Prior Knowledge Impact Students’ Online Learning Behaviors?

Increasingly, individual educational experiences have a significant online component.

Students frequently use Web-based materials as their primary, and often only, informational

sources for educational tasks (e.g., Graham & Metaxas, 2003). Although students are

enthusiastic about using online materials, research evidence suggests that even college students

perceive themselves as more capable of using technology than they actually are (Stone &

Madigan, 2007). When using the Internet to find answers to questions, Graham and Metaxas

(2003) found that students had difficulty identifying trustworthy sources, were not consistently

able to differentiate between advertising and fact, and failed to confirm online information by

checking multiple sources.

The problem may be especially serious when one considers not just finding information

online, but learning from such information. For individuals engaged in self-directed learning

tasks (e.g., using online resources to write a scientific essay), effective use of online resources

requires students to deploy a series of complex behaviors. Students must decide on search terms

relevant to their information needs, conduct searches using their search terms and options from

online search engines, evaluate lists of potential resources to decide what to explore, choose how

long to explore an online resource, and decide when enough information has been gathered.

From a cognitive perspective, learners must identify and encode relevant information from

potentially large amounts of online content and continuously integrate the new information that

they find into an accurate, overall understanding of domain content. Overall, these challenges are

central to complex cognitive processes such as sensemaking (Russell, Jeffries, & Irani, 2008) and

self-regulated learning (Azevedo, Guthrie, & Seibert, 2004; Azevedo, Moos, Greene, Winters, &

Cromley, 2008). They also highlight the interplay between cognitive processes and online
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 4

learning behaviors. Understanding more about how known cognitive variables impact students’

online learning behaviors can support the design and development of educational technologies

and interventions designed to improve the quality of students’ Web-based learning experiences.

Prior Knowledge and Comprehension

In this research, we explored how prior knowledge influenced students’ online learning

behaviors and analyzed the relationship between these behaviors and students’ eventual

knowledge outcomes. We chose to examine prior knowledge as a predictor of online learning

behaviors because prior knowledge repeatedly has been shown to be a key factor in predicting

learning with text (e.g., Adams, Bell, & Perfetti, 1995; McNamara, Kintsch, Songer, & Kintsch,

1996; McNamara & Kintsch, 1996; Recht & Leslie, 1988; Schneider, Körkel, & Weinert, 1989)

and multimedia materials (e.g., Kalyuga, 2005; Kalyuga, Ayres, Chandler, & Sweller, 2003).

The rationale for why prior knowledge plays a strong role in learning can be drawn from

research and theory in cognitive psychology. Relevant prior knowledge forms a framework for

incoming information (Chi, Glaser, & Rees, 1982), allowing new materials to be integrated into a

flexible knowledge representation that can be transferred to new situations (Kintsch, 1988,

1998). Without a conceptual framework of prior knowledge into which incoming information

can be integrated, learners typically focus on memorizing isolated facts that can be recalled but

cannot be applied outside of the context in which it was learned. This type of knowledge long

has been referred to as “inert knowledge” (Whitehead, 1932).

Prior knowledge not only can facilitate the development of more integrated knowledge

during learning tasks, but it also plays a strong role in determining the types of learning materials

that will be best suited to an individual learner. Research has found that creating instructional

materials or scenarios that challenge high-knowledge readers can improve their ultimate learning
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 5

outcomes. For example, high-knowledge readers can benefit when they are provided with text

materials that have low coherence, likely because high-knowledge readers are able to engage the

inferential processes necessary to connect disparate materials (McNamara & Kintsch, 1996).

Existing knowledge in a domain can even, to some degree, compensate for poor reading skill

(Adams et al., 1995) and increase the functional capacity of working memory when readers make

connections between their prior knowledge and the to-be-remembered information (Ricks &

Wiley, 2009).

Prior knowledge and online learning tasks.

Research in information search and retrieval has found that prior knowledge plays a

significant role in how individuals spend their time during Web-based searches. Although

experts in a domain spend much of their available search time scanning and reading materials in

electronic environments, novices often focus on formatting and modifying queries (Marchionini,

1995). This may indicate that novices have a hard time finding relevant results within a database

– likely due to the use of poor search terms – or that novices have a harder time recognizing

relevant resources in the results returned following a search. More recently, Marchionini (2006)

has emphasized the transition of Web-based tasks from traditional lookup (e.g., fact retrieval or

verification) to exploratory search that involves complex forms of learning and discovery (e.g.,

synthesis, integration, comparison) as students search for and analyze materials on the Web.

Since research in text comprehension has demonstrated that prior knowledge plays a

strong role in determining the processes in which learners will engage while studying

(Moravcsik & Kintsch, 1993), prior knowledge also is likely to have strong effect on students’

behaviors and strategies when engaging in online learning tasks. Once a text is selected, many of

the same cognitive processes are involved in comprehension regardless of whether that text is
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 6

encountered online or in print (Butcher & Kintsch, in press). But the Web also poses unique

challenges to learners in the ways that they select and move between texts – the representation

formed by integrating information across documents has been called the intertext model (Perfetti,

Rouet, & Britt, 1999). Some research has found that prior knowledge plays a key role in

predicting the self-regulated processes by which students navigate and process the information

present in hypertext resources. For example, students with high prior knowledge have been

shown to more frequently plan and monitor their learning across hypertext resources whereas

low knowledge learners have been found to be more likely to implement specific strategies (e.g.,

summarizing, note taking) during hypertext learning (Moos & Azevedo, 2008). When choosing a

path through multiple online resources, high-knowledge learners tend to select hypertext links in

a highly-coherent order but lower-knowledge participants tend to follow links according to the

order driven by their interest rather than by textual coherence (Salmerón, Cañas, Kintsch, &

Fajardo, 2005).When students have adequate prior knowledge, they are better able to identify

relevant portions of complex multimedia presentations (Lowe, 1996, 2004) and to allocate their

online study time to more difficult materials (Reader & Payne, 2007).

Although the aforementioned studies show that prior knowledge may have substantial

influences on learners’ approaches to and strategies for learning in online environments, they

also tend to use tightly-controlled versions of online environments that limit the number and

types of digital resources that learners encounter. These constrained systems are, in many ways,

atypical of the large number and variety of materials that are found on the Web. For example,

Salmerón et al. (2005) used a printed text to create an experimenter-developed hypermedia

system focused on atmospheric pollution. Moos and Azevedo (2008) used a commercially-

available digital encyclopedia, but limited participants’ access to three articles relevant to the
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 7

heart and circulatory system. These limited systems may minimize the degree to which

participants engage in the browsing strategies (e.g., selection, navigation, and trial-and-error

discovery) that have become typical of Web-based search when faced with a large variety of

potential digital resources (Marchionini, 2006).

In more naturalistic environments, prior knowledge may help learners make better

decisions about when and how to engage with digital content, especially when they are free to

decide what digital materials they will use for learning. However, it is not entirely clear that prior

knowledge always will support deeper or more meaningful engagement with online content. In a

recent study exploring learners’ behaviors in a hypertext problem-solving environment, learners

with high prior knowledge chose to make use of compact explanations rather than utilizing more

elaborated instructional materials (Scheiter et al., 2009). Although Scheiter et al. (2009)

interpreted this finding as indicative of high knowledge learners tendencies to generate their own

explanations rather than to seek pre-existing explanations, it also may indicate that higher

knowledge learners fail to seek or make use of all the online information available to them.

Whereas true experts may not need additional resources to construct deep and meaningful

explanations of domain content, novice students with higher prior knowledge may still benefit

from greater engagement with online materials if they process them in deep and meaningful

ways. Thus, a key question is how varying prior knowledge among student learners (who still

have much to understand about a domain) will influence their online behaviors.

In the remainder of this paper, we explore the relationship between prior knowledge,

students’ observable and self-reported behaviors and strategies during a self-directed, online

learning task, and students’ learning outcomes.

Categorizing deep vs. shallow knowledge.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 8

Deep and shallow levels of knowledge. Contemporary models of comprehension can be

used to characterize the behaviors and processes students employ during learning – as well as

their resulting knowledge – as either more deep or more shallow. Construction-Integration (CI)

(Kintsch, 1988; van Dijk & Kintsch, 1983) is a well-known model of comprehension that

represents knowledge as occurring at three levels: a superficial surface level, a propositional

textbase level, and a flexible situation model level. The surface level representation is formed

when learners seek to encode the instructional materials verbatim, as might be the case when

memorizing a poem. The textbase level of representation is more typically the level of

knowledge that learners achieve when trying to memorize typical educational materials. The

textbase is formed from basic ideas in the resource, but is not a verbatim representation of the

original materials. Paraphrases or restatements of the learning materials typify the textbase level

of representation. The most flexible and long-lasting representation is the situation model, which

occurs when learners integrate new information with prior knowledge. The situation model level

of representation can be considered the outcome of forming a deep understanding of instructional

materials – the situation model facilitates logical inferences and the application of the learner’s

knowledge to new situations or scenarios. In contrast, the textbase – which remains strongly tied

to the content of the learning materials without transformation or integration – is considered to

be a more shallow form of knowledge that contains mainly factual information.

The characteristics of deep and shallow knowledge also can be used to characterize

assessments that purport to measure domain knowledge and student learning. These assessments

can be categorized by the degree to which they require rote (shallow) recall versus meaningful

(deep) application and synthesis. Whereas shallow assessments require students to recall learned

facts, deep assessments require them to apply learned information to new scenarios and contexts.
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 9

Rote learning (at the textbase level) is often tested via traditional assessments that require recall

of information drawn from instructional materials, such as fill-in-the-blank, multiple choice, and

true/false items (Kintsch, 1998). In contrast, methods to assess deeper learning at the situation

model go beyond recall, requiring the learner to apply, generalize, or organize their knowledge in

some way. These methods can include simple assessments such as short-answer questions that

require inference and transfer, or more specialized methods such as keyword sorting tasks (e.g.,

McNamara & Kintsch, 1996; Wolfe et al., 1998), student-generated knowledge maps or concept

maps (e.g., Ferstl & Kintsch, 1999), and student-generated drawings of mental models (e.g.,

Butcher, 2006). By combining assessments that target these different levels of understanding,

researchers can determine the extent to which participants have encoded or integrated knowledge

during a learning episode. In this research, we use assessments targeting shallow and deep

knowledge to assess the impact of different levels of prior knowledge on students’ Web

behaviors and learning outcomes.

Deep and shallow learning processes. CI characterizes not only the knowledge that

students can learn from instructional materials, but also has been used to characterize the types of

processes in which students engage as they learn. Wiley and Voss (Voss & Silfies, 1996; Wiley

& Voss, 1999) have used the CI model to categorize deep or shallow uses of informational

resources during writing: shallow uses involve borrowing or adding information from resources;

deep uses involve transforming information from this resources. As in previous work (Butcher &

Sumner, 2011), we drew upon Wiley and Voss (Wiley & Voss, 1996, 1999) and the CI model to

characterize shallow and deep learning behaviors and strategies during online learning. We

defined shallow processes as observable or self-reported behaviors that deleted ideas from a

representation or borrowed from existing resources without transforming or integrating the

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 10

information. In contrast, deep processes were defined as observable or self-reported behaviors

that changed or transformed information in ways that created new knowledge. Typically, this

occurred when learners integrated multiple sources of information or generated new, domain-

relevant inferences.

Goals and Objectives

In the current research, we were interested in how prior knowledge would influence

students’ online learning behaviors when using digital library resources to complete a common

educational task: writing an essay about a scientific topic (in this case, earthquakes and plate

tectonics). This research also explored the degree to which deeper and more shallow forms of

prior knowledge had different effects on students’ Web behaviors and learning outcomes.

Based upon our theoretical framework and prior research, we made four specific

predictions focused on deep prior knowledge:

 Deep prior knowledge will be positively correlated with more frequent use of

deep strategies during learning

 Deep prior knowledge will be negatively correlated with the number of digital

resources used

 Deep prior knowledge will be negatively correlated with the duration of digital

resource use

 Deep prior knowledge will be positively correlated with gains in deep learning but

negatively correlated with gains in factual learning

Method
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 11

The data analyzed in this research were collected as part of a prior study of online learning and

conceptual personalization technologies. Additional details regarding the study methodology are

available elsewhere (Butcher & de la Chica, 2010; Butcher & Sumner, 2011). Although these

previous publications (Butcher & de la Chica, 2010; Butcher & Sumner, 2011) statistically

controlled for students’ prior knowledge to examine the impact of digital library tools and

conceptual personalization services on students’ cognitive process and learning outcomes

regardless of prior knowledge, this work specifically examines the relationship between students’

prior knowledge, their specific increases in knowledge at the factual and deep levels, and their

behaviors during web-based, self-directed learning tasks. The current study also goes beyond

Butcher and Sumner (2011) by using a finer-grained analysis of students’ allocations of time

during self-directed use of digital content. These measures include the amount of time that

students spent selecting digital resources and the amount of time that they spent viewing or

interacting with the content of digital resources.

Participants

Participants were 30 undergraduate students (20 females, 10 males) from the University of

Colorado at Boulder. All participants completed the study for course credit in an introductory

psychology course.

Materials

Factual knowledge assessment. Shallow knowledge of the domain was assessed by

targeting factual knowledge using true/false items. The true/false test consisted of 40 statements

organized under 10 basic questions. Each statement targeted factual knowledge about the domain

that did not require knowledge application or transfer and could be learned from the online
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 12

materials provided in the study. For each statement, participants indicated whether it was true or

false. For example:

Where are transform faults found?

Where plates slide past one another: True False

Where plates push against each other: True False
In association with divergent mid-ocean ridges: True False
Where one plate is subducted by another plate: True False
Where hotspot volcanoes are located: True False

For each question, multiple true statements were possible. One point was awarded for

each correct answer; thus, 40 points was the maximum possible score.

Deep knowledge assessment. Deep knowledge of the domain (earthquakes and plate

tectonics) was assessed using a domain application test. This test was administered at pre- and

posttest; the test consisted of five short-answer items that asked students to apply their

knowledge about earthquakes and plate tectonics to new contexts and scenarios. For example:

Alyssa says that plate boundaries are visible on maps as the boundaries between

continents and oceans. Thus, Alyssa reasons that earthquakes are most likely to occur at

these boundaries, along the coastal areas of major continents. Is Alyssa correct about the

location of plate boundaries and their relationship to earthquakes? Use what you know

about plate tectonics to explain your answer.

Participants did not receive feedback on their answers during the study. Tests were scored by a

research assistant blind to the purpose of the study; scores were tallied using a rubric that

awarded points for relevant idea units. Because multiple points were possible for each item, a

maximum score of 30 points was possible on the domain application test.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 13

Digital library materials. The online materials utilized in this study consisted of a

specialized database of 796 learning resources drawn from the Digital Library for Earth System

Education (www.DLESE.org) that had been developed in previous research (Butcher & Sumner,

2011). These Web-based learning resources included general informational resources, scientific

visualizations, animations, imagery, scientific data, simulations, and other forms of interactive

online content. All resources were targeted to high-school age learners and addressed topics in

earthquakes and plate tectonics. Although the number and variety of the digital resources in this

collection approximates the varied materials available on the Web, we limited the relevance and

appropriateness of the online materials available to participants so that Web-based learning

behaviors could be examined in more depth. That is, we did not want to determine how prior

knowledge would influence the success of students’ search queries or their ability to generate

relevant search terms. Rather, we were interested in determining how different levels of prior

knowledge would influence the ways in which students approached and managed their online

learning activities with multiple (relevant) resources.

Revision questionnaire. After students finalized their essays, they completed a questionnaire

about the strategies that they used during essay revision. All students had received computer-

generated feedback on their essays which highlighted up to five specific statements from the

essays as potentially needing feedback (cf., Butcher & Sumner, 2011). On the revision

questionnaire, students responded to three reflection prompts regarding each issue targeted by

feedback. For each set of reflection prompts, students were free to answer as they chose (e.g.,

length of responses was not constrained):

1. Why do you think the system identified this statement for revision?
2. Describe how your revised statement is different from your original one. Please be as
specific as you can.
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 14

3. Explain what you did to revise your original statement and why. Please be as specific
as you can.
The revision questionnaire was segmented into idea units and coded, yielding the following data:

Depth of diagnosis. Participants’ responses to the first prompt were used to code

diagnosis of essay issues. All idea units written for the first prompt that focused on

diagnosis of the essay were coded as either deep (requiring transformation of essay

content) or shallow (requiring only surface-level changes to the essay).

Idea preservation. Participants’ responses to the second prompt were used to code

the percent of issues for which students self-reported that they preserved (or attempted to

preserve) the basic concept or idea that they had written in their original essays.

Depth of revisions. Participants’ responses to the third prompt were used to code

self-reported strategies during the Web learning task. All idea units written in response to

the third prompt that focused on revision behaviors were coded as either deep (describing

transformation of essay content) or shallow (describing surface-level changes).

Digital resource seeking. Participants’ responses to the third prompt also were

analyzed for idea units related to the use of digital resources during learning and revision

activities. This variable represents the percentage of issues (those statements identified as

in potential need of revision) for which students self-reported that they had used or

sought digital resources to support or inform their revisions.

Final essays. Participants’ final essays were scored by a research assistant who was blind to

participant conditions and the purpose of the study. The research assistant gave each essay a

score for holistic quality between 1 and 7 (1 = lowest quality, 7 = highest quality), which

represented the overall quality of the essay (including accuracy and clarity of articulated ideas).
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 15

The research assistant also calculated a content score for each essay. Content scores were

calculated by counting the number of unique (and correct) domain ideas present in each essay.

Screen recording software. Camtasia software was used to record participants’ on-screen

interactions as they revised their initial essays. These recordings enabled a detailed, in-depth

analysis of the amount of time that students devoted to different aspects of the Web-based task

(e.g., browsing links, digital resource exploration) as well as the ways in which students used

digital resources and worked with their essays. For example, copying and pasting text from a

digital resource to their essays or adding their own explanation of a graph viewed in a digital

resource.

Observable online behaviors. The screen capture videos of participants’ actions made it

possible to analyze three general stages during the Web-supported learning task: resource

selection, digital resource exploration, and essay revision. The on-screen videos of each

participants’ online actions were analyzed for the amount of time spent in each of these

observable stages, as defined below.

Resource selection. Resource selection time is defined as the total amount of time

that participants spent retrieving and evaluating lists of digital resource links. Resource

selection time was measured from the second that a list of links or a search box first

appeared onscreen until the participant moved to a different page (either by clicking on a

link or switching back to essay writing). Because not all participants used the same

interface to identify digital resources and returned lists of links sometimes stay onscreen

while participants conduct another search, search time and link evaluation could not be

consistently distinguished. Thus, time spent generating search queries (when necessary)

is included in the resource selection times.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 16

Digital resource exploration. Digital resource exploration occurs when a

participant reads, scrolls or otherwise interacts with the digital content during digital

resource exploration. Digital resource exploration time is defined as the total amount of

time that a participant spent in the digital resources that s/he selected (i.e., clicked on), as

measured from the second that the site/page loaded until the participant closed the

site/page or switched to another task (e.g., search).

Essay revision. Essay revision time is defined as the total amount of time that

participants spent viewing, revising, or otherwise interacting (e.g., scrolling) with their

essays. Essay revision time was calculated from the second that the essay was brought

into view until participants closed the essay or switched to a different window (e.g., the

search interface or a digital resource).

Screen capture videos also were used to examine the degree to which learners made use of

different digital resources, as defined below:

Number of unique digital resources: Screen captures were analyzed for the

number of unique digital resources that participants viewed during the online learning

task. The URL domain name was used to define “uniqueness” – navigation across pages

that shared a common domain name (e.g., nasa.org) was considered to be exploration of

the same overall site. The number of unique digital resources reflects the number of

different sites explored by participants during their digital resource exploration.

Procedure

As reported in Butcher and Sumner (2011), data was collected during two sessions. In session

one, students first completed the prior knowledge assessments. Students had up to 10 minutes to

complete the factual knowledge assessment (the true/false items) and 20 minutes to complete the
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 17

deep knowledge assessment (the domain application test). Students then explored five resources

about the theory of plate tectonics, earthquakes, volcanoes, and mountain formation for 15

minutes. The purpose of this initial exploration was to allow students to refresh their basic

domain knowledge without providing significant time for new learning; resources were chosen

by domain experts. Students then spent 30 minutes writing a 250+ word essay (the initial essay)

about earthquakes and plate tectonics.

In session two, which took place approximately one week after session one, students

revised their initial essays for 35 minutes. Students were provided with access to the collection of

796 DLESE online resources to inform their revisions. Students’ use of online resources was

self-directed during revision; each student decided if, when, and how to make use of online

resources as they revised their essays. All students were allowed to move freely between their

essays, the search interface, and the online educational resources. After revising their essays,

students completed the revision questionnaire (20 min), the factual knowledge assessment (10

min) and the deep knowledge assessment (20 minutes).

Results

Appendix A provides descriptive statistics for all self-reported and observed variables. It should

be noted that the maximum score on the deep knowledge assessment was nine points out of 30.

Thus, even students with higher levels of deep knowledge in this study should be considered

novice learners. This study cannot (and does not intend to) distinguish between the behaviors of

expert and novice learners. Rather, our focus is on how higher or lower levels of factual and deep

prior knowledge influence the online behaviors and knowledge outcomes of novice learners.

Coding of Deep and Shallow Strategies and Behaviors

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 18

Students’ self-reported online learning strategies and their actual, observed

revision behaviors (as recorded on-screen), were categorized as deep or shallow.

Interrater agreement was very good (Cohen’s Kappa = .83). Shallow behaviors/comments

reflected no knowledge transformation or meaningful integration of learning materials

with student knowledge; instead, these behaviors or comments focused on superficial

elements of the essays such as grammar, spelling, style, or the addition of rote

knowledge. For example, on the revision questionnaire, “fixed my grammar” would be

coded as a shallow strategy. In the screen capture videos, shallow revision behaviors

were coded when students added information that was derived by copying text directly

from digital resources and pasting it into the essay.

In contrast, deep behaviors/comments reflected the transformation and integration

of information to create a new representation of knowledge in student essays. Deep

revision behaviors were coded when students changed, interpreted, analyzed, predicted,

or otherwise went beyond the information in the digital resources or integrated multiple

sources of information when adding new content to their essays. Students’ self-reported

learning approaches and strategies were coded when they reflected these deep processes

or reported the use of deep behaviors. For example, on the revision questionnaire, “found

better information about the types of faults and corrected my definition of faults to reflect

this new information” would be coded as a deep strategy.

When comparing students’ revision activities as observed in the screen capture

videos to their self-reported activities in the revision questionnaire, we found that

students were very accurate in describing their revisions to essays and their use of online

resources. On average, 89% (min = 50%, max = 100%) of students’ self-reported actions
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 19

matched observed behaviors seen in the screen captures. Both the median and mode

percent of match between self-reported and observed activities was 100%. Thus, only

students’ self-reported behaviors are analyzed in the remainder of this paper.

Prior Knowledge and Behaviors during Web Learning

A series of standard, multiple linear regressions were calculated, using levels of prior

knowledge as the independent variables and the frequency of an observed online learning

behavior as the dependent variable in each model. Table 1 shows the results of these models, and

the beta coefficients for each predictor.

Table 1

Linear regression models: Using levels of prior knowledge to predict observable behaviors

Dependent measure Β SE Β β
Independent variables (levels of prior knowledge)
Resource selection (F(2, 27) < 1)
Factual prior knowledge 0.17 5.73 < .01
Deep prior knowledge -3.26 14.06 -.04
Resource exploration (F(2, 27) = 4.02, p < .03; R2 = .23)
Factual prior knowledge* 21.77 8.46 .44
Deep prior knowledge -28.18 20.75 -.23
Essay revision (F(2, 27) = 1.18, p > .32; R2 = .08)
Factual prior knowledge -16.04 10.48 -.28
Deep prior knowledge 6.12 25.70 .04
Unique # of resources (F(2, 27) = 1.79, p > .18; R2 = .12)
Factual prior knowledge 0.16 .09 .33
Deep prior knowledge .11 .21 .09
* p < .05

Results demonstrate that levels of prior knowledge were not significant predictors of the

time that students spent seeking and evaluating links to digital resources (i.e., resource selection
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 20

time), the time that students spent engaged with their essays (i.e., essay revision time), or the

number of unique digital resources that students utilized during learning. However, students’

prior knowledge did predict the amount of time that they spent engaged with digital resource

content during a Web-supported learning task. Higher levels of factual prior knowledge

predicted more time spent within the available digital resources, viewing or interacting with their

contents. Although deep prior knowledge did not reach statistical significance as a predictor of

digital resource exploration times, it had a negative relationship with digital resource

exploration: higher deep prior knowledge predicted less time spent viewing or interacting with

digital resources during self-directed online learning.

Prior Knowledge and Strategies during Web Learning

A series of standard, multiple linear regressions also were calculated to examine the

relationship between levels of prior knowledge and students’ self-reported learning strategies.

Results from these models are provided in Table 2.

Table 2

Linear regression models (levels of prior knowledge and self-reported Web learning behaviors)

Dependent measure Β SE Β β
Prior knowledge type
Number of deep diagnoses (F < 1)
.04 .05 .15
Factual prior knowledge
.04 .13 .06
Deep prior knowledge
Number of deep revisions (F(2, 27) = 3.55, p < .05; R2 = .21)
.14 .09 .27
Factual prior knowledge
-.47 .21 -.38
Deep prior knowledge*
Idea preservation (F(2, 27) = 3.77, p < .04; R2 = .22)
-.01 .003 -.30
Factual prior knowledge†
.01 .007 .38
Deep prior knowledge*
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 21

Digital resource seeking (F(2, 27) = 3.66, p < .04; R2 = .21)

.02 .01 .29
Factual prior knowledge†
-.07 .03 -.38
Deep prior knowledge*
†
p ≤ .10; * p < .05

As can be seen in Table 2, across these self-reported variables, deep prior knowledge was

a consistent and significant predictor of behaviors. Higher levels of deep prior knowledge were

predictive of fewer deep revisions, less frequent use of digital resources during the revision task,

and more frequent attempts to preserve (rather than revise or transform) the ideas present in

students’ original essays. The statistical trend for higher levels of factual knowledge was

reversed: higher factual knowledge was associated with less frequent preservation of original

ideas and greater use of digital resources.

Overall, these results show that deep prior knowledge may reduce the depth of students’

self-directed behaviors during a Web learning task. Moreover, higher levels of deep prior

knowledge predicted lesser use of digital resources during learning, including reduced seeking of

digital information and less frequent deep revisions. Is it a problem that deep prior knowledge

influenced students’ behaviors in these ways during a Web-supported learning task? It might be

argued that higher levels of deep prior knowledge make it unnecessary for students to consult

available online resources because they have sufficient understanding to process information

deeply and to generate deep explanations on their own. It also is possible that higher levels of

deep prior knowledge are associated with preservation of original essay ideas because the

original ideas are useful and accurate. Thus, a key question is whether higher levels of deep prior

knowledge are more strongly correlated with deep learning outcomes and final essay quality than

factual prior knowledge, despite lower levels of engagement with digital resources and different

learning strategies.
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 22

Table 3 shows bivariate correlations between students’ deep and factual prior knowledge,

learning outcomes, and (self-reported and observed) Web-learning behaviors.

Table 3

Correlations between levels of prior knowledge, learning outcomes, and Web behaviors

Factual Prior Deep Prior

Knowledge Knowledge
Improvement: factual knowledge -.59** .22

Improvement: deep knowledge .36* -.26

Posttest Essay: Holistic Quality -.06 .01

Posttest Essay: Content Coverage -.06 .00

Shallow essay diagnosis a -.16 -.16

Deep essay diagnosisa .16 .07

Idea Preservation (%) -.28 .36*

Shallow essay revisionsa .09 .26

Deep essay revisionsa .25 -.37*

Digital resource seekinga .27 -.36†

Resource selection timeb .01 -.04

Digital resource exploration timeb .42* -.20

Number of unique digital resourcesb .33† .03

Essay revision timeb -.28 .03

a b
Note. N=30. Self-reported by participants. Coded from screen captures.
†
p < .10. *p < .05. **p < .01

Interestingly, deep prior knowledge of the domain was not significantly correlated to any

measured learning outcome. In contrast, students’ prior factual knowledge about the domain was
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 23

significantly and positively correlated with deep knowledge gain (as measured by proportion of

possible improvement on the knowledge application test) and negatively correlated with factual

knowledge gain (as measured by the proportion of possible improvement on the true/false items).

This is somewhat surprising, in that one might expect factual knowledge gains to be supported

by strong, existing factual knowledge. However, prior factual knowledge predicted longer

searches for digital content and greater use of digital resources provided in the Web collection

for longer periods of time. Moreover, as seen in Table 4, the time that students spent searching

for and using digital resources was significantly and positively related to the development of

deep understanding (as measured by the knowledge application assessment). Thus, strong prior

factual knowledge predicts greater use of digital content, and the greater use of digital content is

more closely associated with development of deep domain understanding than the accumulation

of additional domain facts. For these novice learners, higher levels of deep prior knowledge

appear to discourage strategies related to use of and engagement with digital content. However,

caution must be used in interpreting these data since causality cannot be determined.

Table 4

Correlations between online learning behaviors and learning outcomes

Improvement: factual Improvement: deep

knowledge knowledge
Resource selectionb -.38* .37*

Digital resource explorationb -.20 .46*

Essay revisionb -.28 .26

Number of unique digital resourcesb .38* .01

b
Coded from screen captures.
* p < .05
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 24

A remaining question is whether the changes in learning strategies predicted by higher

levels of deep prior knowledge hurt these novice learners. We have seen that higher deep prior

knowledge was negatively correlated deep essay revisions and positively correlated to the

preservation of original essay ideas (see Table 3), but were these self-reported strategies

correlated to learning outcomes? As seen in Table 5, the pattern of correlations between learning

outcomes and students’ deep and shallow learning strategies (i.e., the self-reported essay

diagnoses and revisions) were consistent with what would be predicted by the CI model

(Kintsch, 1988, 1998). Deep behaviors were significantly correlated with the development of

deep understanding. Shallow behaviors were negatively associated, though only at the level of a

statistical trend, with deep knowledge gain. The frequency with which students reported

preserving their original essay ideas during revision was significantly and negatively associated

with improvement in deep understanding: the more students worked with their original ideas

(rather than modifying them), the lower their gains on the deep knowledge assessment.

Table 5

Correlations between self-reported processes and learning outcomes

Improvement: factual Improvement: deep

knowledge knowledge
Shallow essay diagnosisa .05 -.35†

Deep essay diagnosisa -.03 .41*

Shallow essay revisionsa -.01 -.20

Deep essay revisionsa -.10 .48**

Idea preservationa .07 -.39*

a
Self-reported by participants.
†
p ≤ .10; * p < .05
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 25

As demonstrated by the correlations in Table 5, the strategy changes associated with deep prior

knowledge were likely to compromise students’ development of deep understanding during a

Web-based learning task. However, is there any evidence that deeper strategies themselves were

associated with stronger use of Web resources? Table 6 provides the bivariate correlations

between students’ self-reported strategies and their self-reported and observed use of digital

resources during learning. Results show that deep essay revisions were significantly and

positively correlated with the degree to which students reported seeking digital resources and the

observed length of time that they viewed or interacted with such resources.

Table 6

Correlations between Use of Digital Resources and Learning Strategies

Digital Resource Resource Exploration

Seekinga Timeb
Shallow essay diagnosisa -.28 -.16

Deep essay diagnosisa .34† .07

Shallow essay revisionsa -.34† -.04

Deep essay revisionsa .38* .45*

a b
Self-reported by participants. Coded from screen captures.
†
p ≤ .10; * p < .05

The overall pattern of results from the regressions and the correlational analyses

demonstrates a strong relationship between different levels of prior knowledge, students’ Web-

based learning strategies, and their observed online learning behaviors. Factual prior knowledge

predicted greater use of Web resources during learning whereas deep prior knowledge predicted

a greater tendency to avoid Web resources and to rely on one’s previous ideas. At the same time,

greater use of Web resources was positively correlated with deeper revision strategies and the
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 26

development of deeper domain understanding. For these novice learners, higher levels of deep

prior knowledge may not have been an advantage. Rather, a strong textbase – in the form of

higher factual prior knowledge – predicted a greater willingness to use Web content and a greater

likelihood of developing deep understanding following a Web-based learning task.

General Discussion

The current results demonstrate that, when examining the relationship between learning

behaviors and students’ prior knowledge during a Web-based educational task, it is important to

consider not only students’ overall amount of prior domain knowledge, but the depth of this prior

knowledge. Overall, only one of the predictions about deep prior knowledge was supported by

the results from this study. Deep prior knowledge was negatively correlated with the duration of

digital resource use – that is, higher deep prior knowledge predicted less overall use of Web

content. Surprisingly, the observed relationships between deep prior knowledge, learning

strategies, and deep learning outcomes were the opposite of what was predicted: deep prior

knowledge was negatively associated with deep essay revisions and deep learning outcomes;

further, there was no relationship between deep prior knowledge and the number of digital

resources used. In contrast to our predictions, factual prior knowledge demonstrated stronger,

positive relationships to the use of Web content than did deep prior knowledge. Higher factual

prior knowledge was positively correlated with the number of digital resources used or viewed

during learning.

Taken as a whole, deep prior knowledge mainly was associated with compromised

success in a Web-based learning task for these novice learners. Higher levels of deep prior

knowledge were associated with less frequent modification of domain ideas, less frequent

engagement with deep strategies during a Web-supported learning task, and a general reluctance
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 27

to make use of the Web resources available. These results are consistent with prior research

findings showing that many students are unable to use the Web effectively for learning tasks

(Graham & Metaxas, 2003; Stone & Madigan, 2007), but the current results demonstrate that this

problem is not simply the result of students lacking sufficient domain knowledge to guide

effective online exploration. In this research, high-quality resources were returned for every Web

search. Moreover, this research found that students who were likely the most capable of learning

from high-quality online resources also were most reluctant to engage with them. This result

extends the previous finding that higher knowledge learners are less likely to engage with

elaborated instructional materials online (Scheiter et al., 2009). Our findings suggest that higher

deep prior knowledge may lead novice students to make poor choices about their online learning

behaviors during a self-directed task, although the directional nature of this relationship cannot

be conclusively determined from the analyses conducted here. Although all students in this

research had much to learn about the domain, deep prior knowledge predicted fewer deep

revisions and less frequent use of Web resources when students worked to improve their essays.

If higher deep prior knowledge was associated with deeper learning or higher quality essays at

posttest, one might consider these students to be effectively managing their approaches to online

learning without assistance from Web resources. However, in this research, deep prior

knowledge did not predict learning outcomes. Rather, higher levels of factual prior knowledge

were associated greater learning, as well as with the use of greater numbers of digital resources

for longer periods of time. So, why did higher factual prior knowledge predict deeper learning

and stronger use of online content?

One possibility is that higher factual prior knowledge may serve as an effective basis for

comprehension without making students overconfident about their existing understanding.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 28

Higher factual prior knowledge was positively correlated both with the use of Web resources and

deep learning outcomes. From a CI model perspective, a textbase level representation is

necessary (but not sufficient) for development of the situation model (Kintsch, 1998). In this

research, existing factual knowledge does appear to prepare students to learn more deeply

through the use of deep strategies and Web exploration. Higher factual prior knowledge may

have prompted students to seek resources that explained the connections or relationships between

the facts that they knew. In contrast, higher deep prior knowledge was negatively correlated both

with meaningful revisions and students’ perceived need for Web information. It appears that

higher deep prior knowledge changed both the types of revision that students perceived as useful

as well as the information resources they considered necessary to complete such revisions.

These results from this study are consistent with findings from text comprehension

research demonstrating that high-knowledge learners may actually learn less than their lower-

knowledge peers when instructional materials fail to provide sufficient challenge to spur higher

knowledge learners to engage deeply and to participate actively in the learning situation

(McNamara, Kintsch, Songer, & Kintsch, 1996; McNamara & Kintsch, 1996). It may be the case

that the Web environment or the Web-based learning task must be made more challenging to

engage learners with higher levels of deep prior knowledge; for example, by using deep

questioning during online tutoring dialogues (Craig, Sullins, Witherspoon, & Gholson, 2006),

implementing digital learning tasks within a constructivist-based WebQuest (Zheng, Stucky,

McAlack, Menchana, & Stoddart, 2005), or making use of adaptive scaffolding appropriate to

the individual learner (Azevedo, Cromley, & Seibert, 2004). Although higher levels of deep prior

knowledge did not predict deeper strategies during online learning, current findings

demonstrated that students who do take a deep approach to online learning are likely to benefit
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 29

from their use of high-quality digital resources. Further, the current results suggest that higher

levels of factual knowledge may provide students with enough background to make strong use of

Web materials at the same time that they are willing to extend and transform their original ideas.

Online learning tasks may be complicated by a variety of factors in addition to prior

knowledge. For example, recent research has demonstrated that the trustworthiness of a text

source plays a significant role in comprehension (Bråten, Strømsø, & Britt, 2009). Other research

has demonstrated that effective online learners must utilize a variety of self-regulated learning

strategies (e.g., creating subgoals, monitoring understanding, planning time) in addition to

activating prior knowledge (Azevedo, Guthrie, & Siebert, 2004). The current results demonstrate

that prior knowledge itself may not be sufficient to drive deep, strategic processes during online

learning. Indeed, for novice learners, stronger deep prior knowledge may compromise their

effective use of deep learning strategies with Web content. However, a strong factual knowledge

base appears to facilitate better use of Web content and, ultimately, support deeper

understanding.

Results demonstrated a significant relationship between the use of online learning

materials and deep online learning strategies. Moreover, both deep approaches to learning and

longer overall engagement with digital resources were related to stronger domain understanding

as assessed by a knowledge application test. These data show that a combination of high-quality

online resources, such as those found in educational digital libraries, and deep learning strategies

can promote meaningful domain understanding even during short periods of study. However, the

directionality of these data cannot be determined. Do students apply deeper learning strategies

when interacting with high-quality digital resources? If students recognize the trustworthiness of

these resources (cf., Bråten, Strømsø, & Britt, 2009) and their domain relevance, it is plausible
PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 30

that they may employ more effective comprehension strategies. However, it is also possible that

students who gravitate toward using deeper learning strategies are simply more successful in

making use of most digital resources, especially high-quality resources that are clearly relevant

to the to-be-learned domain.

It is important to keep in mind that these data were collected during a constrained

experimental task in a laboratory environment. Although the study used a large collection of real,

online materials drawn from an educational digital library, the fact that these materials were

chosen to be age- and topic-relevant does ease some burdens associated with typical Web-

supported learning in naturalistic environments. For example, in this study, students’ searches

inevitably returned relevant and high-quality digital resources. Students were not faced with

weeding out irrelevant, erroneous, or useless materials. For self-directed Web learning tasks

outside of the lab, we expect that the usefulness of digital resource exploration in promoting deep

understanding is largely tied to the quality and relevance of the resources that students locate and

select. Outside of the lab, we also expect that students with higher deep prior knowledge may

experience different motivations (e.g., grades) that could influence the degree to which they

employ deep strategies and/or engage with available online materials. It also is possible that

learners with higher deep prior knowledge could be supported by personalized learning systems

(de la Chica, Ahmad, Sumner, Martin, & Butcher, 2008) that increase the depth or complexity of

recommended digital materials in response to an assessment of students’ existing knowledge at

deep and shallow levels.

Overall, the observed results provide an interesting foundation for future work assessing

the relationships between students’ levels of prior knowledge, online learning strategies,

interactions with digital content, and ultimate learning outcomes.

PRIOR KNOWLEDGE AND ONLINE LEARNING 31

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Appendix A

Means and standard deviations for prior knowledge, self-reported, and observed variables

M SD Min Max
Factual prior knowledge 28.4 5.0 16 37
Deep prior knowledge 3.2 2.2 0 9
Improvement (% of possible): factual 6.9 26.4 -54 44
knowledge
Improvement (% of possible): deep 11.9 16.4 -20 52
knowledge
Shallow essay diagnosisa 1.1 1.3 0 4
Deep essay diagnosisa 3.1 1.4 0 5
Idea preservationa (%) 9.4 7.9 0 25
Shallow essay revisionsa 3.1 2.2 0 9
Deep essay revisionsa 4.0 2.6 0 10
Digital resource seekinga (%) 42.9 39.4 0 100
Posttest essay: holistic quality score 3.8 1.7 1 7
Posttest essay: content score 5.4 2.4 1 11
Resource selectionb (sec) 208.5 150.7 56 656
Digital resource explorationb (sec) 525.1 253.3 69 1140
b
Essay revision (sec) 1082.8 287.1 371 1595
b
Number of unique digital resources 6 2 2 10
a b
Note. N=30. Self-reported by participants. Coded from screen captures.

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