Cognitive Assessment of Knowledge Consolidation in a Course on the Diagnostic Evaluation of Learning Disorders in Psychology Students

Abstract

This study explored the cognitive changes to long-term memory as a result of academic learning in 43 Psychology undergraduate students (91% female and 9% male). The participants carried out a conceptual definition task based on the Natural Semantic Networks technique. They defined ten target concepts related to the diagnostic evaluation of learning disorders using verbs, nouns, or adjectives as definers. After, students weighed the quality of each definer through a ten-point scale. The higher the score, the greater the conceptual relationship between the definer and the target. The data of this study (the schema behavior) was subjected to a computational simulation. Finally, the participants carried out a lexical decision task based on the semantic priming paradigm, they read pairs of words that may or may not be related to the measured knowledge schema. The task was to judge whether the second word in each pair was spelled correctly or incorrectly. The results indicated an increase in the level of conceptual accessibility derived from learning. In addition, the participants accessed their knowledge schema, first through general nodes and then retrieved through the more specific nodes. The neurocomputational activation pattern suggested that learning experiences changed the meaning of concepts for each participant along the course. At the end of the course, the students seemed to reach a schematic consolidation. The diagnosis of these cognitive characteristics through the formation of academic schemas can provide learning opportunities closer to each student’s cognitive profile to increase the effectiveness of instruction.