FROM DECLARATIVE AND PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE TO THE MANAGEMENT OF DECLARATIVE AND PROCEDURAL KNOWLEDGE

Research on domain-specific knowledge and general knowledge such as st rategies has shown that information can indeed be available to a subje ct and still not be used. Several hypothesis have been set forth to ex plain this phenomenon; they as briefly exposed. An alternative, comple mentory hypothesis is then presented. It is assumed that most activiti es have several components organized in the form of a complex hierarch y. These interdependent components require monitoring because, at cert ain times, they are competing with one another for resources. Competit ion for resources and problems in component coordination may lead to a drop in performance. Several studies dealing with diverse knowledge d omains are reviewed, which provide evidence for such resource problems . The same theoretical framework is then applied to explain several fa cts concerning teaching and learning: the impact of advance organizers ; the instability of performance across repeated executions; some effe cts of social variables; the efficiency of tutoring and of taking into account the 'proximal zone of development'. The limited cognitive cap acity construct proves extremely useful in interpreting a large number of phenomena in a wide variety of domains.