ACQUIRING STRUCTURAL KNOWLEDGE FROM SEMANTICALLY STRUCTURED HYPERTEXT

Hypertext researchers and designers contend that hypertext information structures may reflect the semantic structures of human memory. Furth er, they believe that mapping the semantic structure of an expert onto a hypertext information structure and explicitly illustrating that st ructure in the hypertext will result in improved comprehension, becaus e the knowledge structures of the users will reflect the knowledge str uctures of the expert to a greater degree (Jonassen, 1990, 1991b). Thi s paper reviews techniques for ascertaining an expert's knowledge stru cture and mapping it onto hypertext. It then reviews the results of th ree studies that assess the effects of different methods for explicitl y mapping expert knowledge structures onto hypertext on the acquisitio n of structural knowledge in the learners. The studies show that depic ting knowledge structures in the form of a graphical browser or by mak ing explicit the structural nature of the links during traversal does not improve learners' acquisition of structural knowledge. However, wh en assigned the task of generating a semantic network following browsi ng, structural knowledge acquisition improved significantly. It is the assigned processing task and goals for learning while interacting wit h a hypertext that appears to most significantly determine the effects of its use on learners' knowledge structures.