Does the Format of Pretraining Matter?: A Study on the Effects of Different Pretraining Approaches on Prior Knowledge Construction in an Online Learning Environment

Literature Review

Like other types of learning, complex learning poses considerable challenges to learners due to its high demands on cognitive resources, prior knowledge and information processing (Grice, 1987; Schwartz & Bransford, 1998; Zheng, McAlack, Wilmes, Kohler-Evans, & Williamson, 2009). For many, prior knowledge activation resonates with meaningful learning (Surber & Schroeder, 2007; Winberg & Hedman, 2008). Schwartz and Bransford (1998) pointed out that learning becomes “problematic if students do not have the relevant prior knowledge to begin with” (p. 475). Thus, how to effectively develop learners’ prior knowledge becomes a focal point for many researchers who explore the issues from the perspectives of cognitive structures (Kinchin, Hay, & Adams, 2000) and memory related instructional strategies (Lee, Plass, & Homer, 2006; Miller, Geng, Zheng, & Dewald, 2012).