THE INFLUENCE OF TOPIC KNOWLEDGE, DOMAIN KNOWLEDGE, AND INTEREST ON THE COMPREHENSION OF SCIENTIFIC EXPOSITION

In this study, we explored the influence of subject-matter knowledge a nd interest on college students' comprehension of scientific expositio n. Two forms of subject-matter knowledge were considered: Passage-spec ific (i.e., topic) knowledge and general(i.e., domain) knowledge. Coll ege students read two passages from physics, one dealing with Stephen Hawking and Grand Unification Theory, and one about the search for the truth quark. Students' topic knowledge and domain knowledge were test ed before reading the passages. After reading each passage, students r ated their interest in what they read. Comprehension measures were the n completed for each passage. We performed regression analyses to dete rmine the effects of subject-matter knowledge and interest on the comp rehension scores for each passage. For the more technical Quarks passa ge, domain knowledge and interest were both significant predictors of comprehension. For the more personally-involving Hawking passage, topi c knowledge, domain knowledge, and interest were significant predictor s of comprehension performance. Overall, students were more interested in less abstruse and more personally-involving information for both p assages.