Concept Difficulty as a Function of the Number and Level of Conceptualization of the Defining Attributes

Abstract

A study was conducted to investigate the effect on concept difficulty of: a. ) the number of defining attributes, and b. ) the level of conceptualization (LC) of the concepts' attributes. One hundred and three, tenth-grade stu dents were randomly assigned to one of two groups. Group I of the Ss was tested on the attributes of each concept. The index of concept difficulty for Group 1 was the ability to identify instances embodying the attributes of the con cepts. Group 2 of the Ss responded to a test on the concepts that had been previously classified according to the information obtained on Group 1. The index of concept difficulty for Group 2 was the ability to identify instances of the concept. The conclusions of the analysis were as follows: a. ) concept difficulty was inversely proportion al to the LC of the concepts' attributes (p .05) by the number of relevant attributes in each concept; and c. ) the difficulty of a conjunctive concept was a function of the interaction of the number of defining attributes and the mean LC of the concepts' attributes (p < .01) . IN TERMS OF EFFICIENCY and economy teachers should decide in advance which concepts their stu dents will be able to understand as well as which con cepts should learned. The general approach in deter mining the nature of concept difficulty has been es sentially intuitive, based on the trial and error of previous teaching experience. Thus the decision as to which concepts should be taught, when concept dif ficulty is the consideration, is often governed more by the predilections of a given teacher than by any genuine insight into the teaching?learning process. It becomes apparent therefore, that for a teacher to be most effective she needs information about the factors that contribute to the difficulty of a particular concept. The present study was an attempt to investigate the effects of two factors?number of defining attri butes and the degree to which a student has learned those attributes (level of conceptualization) ?on the difficulty of a concept. Because of the complexity of various types of concepts the present study was limited to conjunctive concepts or those concepts de fined by one set of common elements. A number of investigators have suggested that one factor which affects concept difficulty is the number of defining attributes (2,3,6) . Indeed, laboratory studies of concept formation have demonstrated that difficulty increases as a function of the number of criterial attributes (1,2) . It has also been observ ed, however, that in some instances two concepts with the same number of attributes may be of un equal difficulty. One possible explanation of the difference in dif ficulty between two equal-attribute concepts may in volve the thoroughness with which an individual has conceptualized the defining attributes of each concept (level of conceptualization) . Such a hypothesis is derivable from the theoretical views of Gagne (4 ) who has proposed a hierarchical theory of instruction. According to Gagne, the solving of a final task is dependent on having learned the prerequisite or subordinate subskills involved. These subskills moreover, are arranged in a hierarchy such that knowledge of a subordinate skill transfers positively to a higher-order task. A number of investigators (3,5,7) have expressed the view that the prerequi site knowledge for learning a conjunctive concept con sists of having conceptualized the concept's defining attributes. Accordingly, one could argue that con cept difficulty would vary inversely with the level of I conceptualization of the relevant attributes. This content downloaded from 157.55.39.105 on Fri, 07 Oct 2016 04:18:08 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms MOORE, BERZONSKY, and JONES 43 The present study, therefore, sought to inves tigate the influence of these two factors on the dif ficulty of a concept. Specifically it was hypothesized that concept difficulty would a. ) increase as the number of defining attributes increased, and b. ) decrease as the mean level of conceptualization (LC ) of the concept's attributes increased.