Abstract

This study performed three experiments with purposes of (i) analyzing the interactive effects of provision of the function name of task part, nature of the task and presentation period with the claimed recall superiority of experts compared to novices, (ii) examining the validity of image representation independent to the conceptual chunking, and (iii) revealing the details of expertise knowledge structure using the 'ordered' tree diagram technique. Experiment 1 employed the mixed factorial design of skill level(.expert-advanced technicians-novice) x task meanigfulness(meaningful task - nonsense task) x function name of task park (function name of total task set - function name of task subset - no provision) and Experiment 2 used another mixed factional design of skill level(expert-novice) x configuration pattern of study task(normal pattern-altered pattern) x presentation period(5 sec-15 sec), all using the task of electrical circuit drawings. Experiment 3 had the mixed factorial design of skill levels(ex pert-advanced programer-novice) x function name of task part(subset function name-no provision). Results obtained were (i) experts were superior in recall compared to their counterparts, ( ii ) experts recall superiority occurred only for the meaningul or normal patterned task, which was noted as indicating the image representation independent to the conceptual chunkings, (iii) the presentation of function name of task part seemed to have positive effects for recall, particularly when presented at the study phase, and (iv) experts knowledge structure were inferred to be better integrated and coherent and more differentiated and elaborated compared to the novices. But surprisingly no difference was found between expert and advanced technicians, which was discussed with the two-stage hypothesis of 'how' and 'what contents' of knowledge structure.