Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Identifier

6624

Date

2020

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science

Major

Psychology

Concentration

Clinical Psychology

Committee Chair

Jason L. G. Braasch

Committee Member

Andrew Olney

Committee Member

Jeffrey Berman

Abstract

In an effort to build upon research focusing on multiple-text comprehension, a meta-analysis was conducted with 24 studies to evaluate the relationships between prior knowledge and various aspects of comprehending, evaluating, attending to sources, and using multiple texts. Amongst the 63 effect sizes analyzed, prior knowledge--overall--was found to be a significant guiding contributor to various aspects of comprehension. Whereas prior knoweldge was a strong predictor for understanding semantic information and in integrating information across multiple texts, when considering evaluation and attention to sources, prior knowledge yielded a moderate effect. When considering various moderating factors involving different divisions of the type of dependent measures used across studies, no moderation occurred. This suggests a level of robustness in how constructs are being measured. Implications of results and opportunities for future direction are discussed.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to the local University of Memphis Electronic Theses & dissertation (ETD) Repository.

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