Return to Background Knowledge factor page.
Numerous measures exist to gain a full picture of a student's learning strengths and challenges. Following are examples of measures used to assess this Learner Factor. These measures should be administered and interpreted by experienced professionals.
Background Knowledge Assessment: Assess Background Knowledge by testing students' knowledge of a chosen topic
Alexander, P., Kulikowich, J., & Schulze, S. (1994). How subject-matter knowledge affects recall and interest. American Educational Research Journal, 31(2), 313-337.
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Castles, A., Rastle, K., & Nation, K. (2018). Ending the reading wars: Reading acquisition from novice to expert. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 19(1), 5-51.
Chou, P. T. M. (2011). The effects of vocabulary knowledge and background knowledge on reading comprehension of Taiwanese EFL students. Electronic Journal of Foreign Language Teaching, 8(1), 108-115.
Currie, N. K., & Cain, K. (2015). Children's inference generation: The role of vocabulary and working memory. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 137, 57-75.
Derlan, C. L., Umaña-Taylor, A. J., Updegraff, K. A., & Jahromi, L. B. (2017). Longitudinal relations among Mexican-origin mothers' cultural characteristics, cultural socialization, and 5-year-old children's ethnic-racial identification. Developmental Psychology, 53(11), 2078-2091
Droop, M., & Verhoeven, L. (1998). Background knowledge, linguistic complexity, and second-language reading comprehension. Journal of Literacy Research, 30(2), 253-271.
Elbro, C., & Buch-Iversen, I. (2013). Activation of background knowledge for inference making: Effects on reading comprehension. Scientific Studies of Reading, 17(6), 435-452.
Gelman, S. A., & Coley, J. D. (1990). The importance of knowing a dodo is a bird: Categories and inferences in 2-year-old children. Developmental Psychology, 26(5), 796-804.
Hirsch, E.D. (2003). Reading comprehension requires knowledge - of words and the world: Scientific insights into the fourth-grade slump and stagnant reading comprehension. American Educator, 27(1), 10-22, 28-29, 48.
Kaefer, T., Neuman, S. B., & Pinkham, A. M. (2015). Pre-existing background knowledge influences socioeconomic differences in preschoolers' word learning and comprehension. Reading Psychology, 36(3), 203-231.
McNeil, L. (2011). Investigating the contributions of background knowledge and reading comprehension strategies to L2 reading comprehension: An exploratory study. Reading and Writing, 24(8), 883-902.
Moje, E. B., Ciechanowski, K. M., Kramer, K., Ellis, L., Carrillo, R., & Collazo, T. (2004). Working toward third space in content area literacy: An examination of everyday funds of knowledge and discourse. Reading Research Quarterly, 39(1), 38-70.
Neuman, S. B., Kaefer, T., & Pinkham, A. (2014). Building background knowledge. The Reading Teacher, 68(2), 145-148.
Price, L. H., Bradley, B. A., & Smith, J. M. (2012). A comparison of preschool teachers' talk during storybook and information book read-alouds. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 27(3), 426-440.
Pulido, D. (2004). The effect of cultural familiarity on incidental vocabulary acquisition through reading. The Reading Matrix: An Online International Journal, 4(2), 20-53.
Shapiro, A. (2004). How including prior knowledge as a subject variable may change outcomes of learning research. American Educational Research Journal, 41(1), 159-189.
Taboada, A., Tonks, S. M., Wigfield, A., & Guthrie, J. T. (2009). Effects of motivational and cognitive variables on reading comprehension. Reading and Writing, 22(1), 85-106.
Was, C. A., & Woltz, D. J. (2007). Reexamining the relationship between working memory and comprehension: The role of available long-term memory. Journal of Memory and Language, 56(1), 86-102.
Zumbrunn, S., & Bruning, R. (2013). Improving the writing and knowledge of emergent writers: The effects of self-regulated strategy development. Reading and Writing, 26(1), 91-110.