Connect Prior Knowledge to New Learning¶

Strategy · All strategies
Evidence · 3 claims (1 for, 1 mixed, 1 against) · 10 studies (4 causal, 3 review, 2 quant-synthesis, 1 theoretical), q1–q4 · 2 of 10 report an effect size

Description¶

This strategy deliberately surfaces what learners already know and links it to new content before, during, and after instruction. It includes activating prior knowledge through prompts and discussion, using Analogies to map familiar concepts onto unfamiliar ones, and relating new material to learners' experiences and real-world contexts. The goal is meaningful learning: new information is encoded as an elaboration of existing schemas rather than as isolated facts.

Design Implications¶

Prior knowledge is the single strongest predictor of new learning; learners comprehend and retain material better when instruction explicitly bridges from what they know Prior knowledge activation improves learning outcomes. [+S]. Ausubel's principle — "ascertain what the learner knows and teach accordingly" — remains the operational core: the most important factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows. However, activation must be accurate; activating incomplete or incorrect prior knowledge can entrench misconceptions, so instruction should also surface and confront errors [~M].

Context¶

Requirements¶

• Diagnosis of what learners actually know (pre-assessments, brainstorming, concept inventories) — not assumptions about it
• Prompts or structures that trigger relevant knowledge at the right moment (Activation, Advance Organizers)
• Analogies and examples drawn from learners' genuine experience, verified rather than presumed (Analogies and Prior Knowledge Activation)
• A mechanism for detecting and addressing misconceptions and knowledge gaps
• A diagnostic step: pre-assessment, discussion, or brainstorming that reveals what learners actually know, including misconceptions
• An activation activity that brings relevant knowledge into working memory at the moment of instruction (Activation, Analogies, Advance Organizers)
• Explicit bridging: the new material must be visibly connected to the activated knowledge, not presented as a separate topic afterward
• A plan for handling misconceptions, since activation surfaces them but does not resolve them

Constraints¶

• Activating inappropriate or erroneous prior knowledge impairs learning; learners may map a familiar analogy onto the new domain in ways that create misconceptions [~M]
• Learners with weak or fragmented prior knowledge cannot benefit from activation prompts alone — they need knowledge-building first, not just retrieval attempts
• For highly knowledgeable learners, extensive activation and scaffolding can be redundant and slow learning (the expertise reversal effect) Guidance that helps novices can hinder learners with high prior knowledge. [~S]
• Overloading a lesson with connections, anecdotes, and analogies can add extraneous load rather than reduce it Cognitive overload degrades learning. [-M]
• Learners with genuine gaps or inaccurate schemas cannot "connect" to material they do not have; activation without remediation leaves them behind
• Over-reliance on familiar analogies can entrench misconceptions when the analogy's limits are never addressed [~M]

Implementation Variability¶

• Pre-instructional: advance organizers, anticipatory guides, KWL charts, pre-questions
• During instruction: analogies, worked examples anchored in familiar contexts, Anchored Instruction scenarios
• Learner-generated: asking students to supply their own examples and connections, which produces deeper elaboration than instructor-supplied ones [+M]
• Culturally responsive: selecting contexts and examples that reflect learners' community and lived experience, which is especially consequential for learners whose prior knowledge differs from the textbook default
• Advance organizers — a brief expository or comparative overview presented before the material (Ausubel's original formulation)
• Analogical bridging — mapping new concepts onto familiar domains (Analogies and Prior Knowledge Activation)
• Misconception-focused — eliciting predictions, then confronting them with evidence (used in physics and science education)
• Experience-based — drawing on learners' lived experience and cultural knowledge, particularly valuable in diverse classrooms
• KWL and similar routines — structured Know/Wonder/Learned charts that make connections explicit and revisitable

Target Learners¶

• Novices, who benefit most from explicit bridges between familiar and new material Prior knowledge activation improves learning outcomes. [+S]
• Learners whose everyday experience contains relevant but unarticulated knowledge that instruction can surface
• Less beneficial — and sometimes counterproductive — for advanced learners, for whom activation routines add redundancy Guidance that helps novices can hinder learners with high prior knowledge. [~S]
• Learners with misconceptions benefit when activation is paired with cognitive conflict and correction

Target Learning Goals¶

• Comprehension and meaningful learning: integrating new concepts into existing schemas
• Retention: elaboratively encoded material is better recalled
• Transfer: knowledge connected to multiple contexts and experiences is more likely to be applied in new ones
• Conceptual change: surfacing misconceptions is the precondition for restructuring them
• Conceptual understanding: integrating new ideas into existing schemas
• Retention: meaningful connections support durable memory
• Transfer: knowledge connected to multiple contexts and prior structures is more available for application
• Conceptual change: surfacing and revising inaccurate prior conceptions

Instructions¶

1. Diagnose entry knowledge with a short pre-assessment, brainstorm, or concept inventory before planning the lesson.
2. Open with an Activation activity — a prompt, question, or brief recall task that retrieves relevant prior knowledge into working memory.
3. Provide an Advance Organizer that frames the new material's structure in terms learners already understand.
4. Introduce new content through Analogies mapped explicitly onto familiar concepts, and check where the analogy breaks down.
5. Have learners generate their own connections and examples, and use feedback to correct mis-mappings (Assessment for Learning).
6. Revisit and revise the initial knowledge display at lesson's end so learners see how their understanding changed.

Related Strategies¶

• Activating Prior Knowledge — the retrieval-focused subset of this strategy
• Use Analogies — the primary mechanism for mapping familiar to unfamiliar
• Use Advance Organizers — structural framing before instruction
• Use Pre-Questions — retrieval prompts that potentiate subsequent learning
• Activate Background Knowledge — classroom routine variant emphasizing learner experience sharing
• Accessing Students' Background Knowledge — diagnostic and culturally responsive variant
• Embed the KWL strategy across inquiry phases to guide question generation and question-quality monitoring

Examples¶

• Anchored Instruction (Jasper Woodbury series) — video-based adventures anchor new mathematical reasoning in a rich, familiar story context, requiring students to connect existing knowledge to the problem.
• KWL charts in elementary science — students record what they Know, what they Want to know, and later what they Learned, making prior knowledge and its revision visible.
• Physics instruction using misconceptual pre-tests — instructors surface intuitive (often Aristotelian) beliefs about motion before teaching Newtonian mechanics, then explicitly confront the mismatch.
• Bransford & Johnson's passage studies — learners who were given a relevant title ("washing clothes") before reading a vague passage comprehended and recalled far more than those given it afterward, demonstrating that activation must precede encoding.
• Physics "Predict–Observe–Explain" routines — students predict an outcome based on their intuitive conception, observe the actual result, and reconcile the difference; widely used in interactive lecture demonstrations.
• Annenberg Learner video-based science courses open lessons by eliciting learners' existing explanations before presenting the scientific account.
• KWL charts in literacy instruction — students record what they Know and Want to know before reading, then return to record what they Learned, making the prior-knowledge connection explicit and assessable.

Key Sources¶

• Ausubel, D. P. (1968). Educational psychology: A cognitive view. Holt, Rinehart & Winston.
• Bransford, J. D., & Johnson, M. K. (1972). Contextual prerequisites for understanding: Some investigations of comprehension and recall. Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior, 11(6), 717–726. doi:10.1016/S0022-5371(72)80006-9
• Dochy, F., Segers, M., & Buehl, M. M. (1999). The relation between assessment practices and outcomes of studies: The case of research on prior knowledge. Review of Educational Research, 69(2), 145–195. doi:10.3102/00346543069002145
• Schwartz, D. L., & Bransford, J. D. (1998). A time for telling. Cognition and Instruction, 16(4), 475–522. doi:10.1207/s1532690xci1604_4
• Dochy, F., Segers, M., & Buehl, M. M. (1999). The relation between assessment practices and outcomes of studies: The case of research on prior knowledge. Review of Educational Research, 69(2), 145–186. doi:10.3102/00346543069002145
• Ambrose, S. A., Bridges, M. W., DiPietro, M., Lovett, M. C., & Norman, M. K. (2010). How learning works: Seven research-based principles for smart teaching. Jossey-Bass.