What counts? the predictive powers of subject-matter knowledge, strategic processing, and interest in domain-specific performance

The purpose of this study was to explore the contributions of subject-matter knowledge, strategic processing, and interest to college students' educational psychology learning. The model of domain learning, or MDL (Alexander, 1997), guided our instrument development and served as the framework for multivariate analyses and path modeling. In general, the study's results upheld the MDL predictions. For example, students' subject-matter knowledge, strategic processing, interest, and interactive knowledge significantly increased after a semester of domain instruction. In addition, path analyses revealed that posttest subject-matter knowledge was both directly and indirectly predicted by pretest subject-matter knowledge, surface- and deep-level processing, interactive knowledge, and pretest interest Predicted interrelations among subject-matter knowledge also emerged, as did interest and interactive knowledge at pretest, and subject-matter knowledge at posttest Finally, it appears that the nature of the tasks used in this investigation differentially affected students' reported strategy use from the outset of the course to its conclusion.