Quantitative and qualitative differences between experts and novices in chunking computer software knowledge

Abstract

This study investigated quantitative and qualitative differences between experts and novices in knowledge structure, specifically in their chunking of computer software knowledge. An experiment was conducted to collect pairwise relatedness ratings of 23 concepts in C computer programming from 10 experts and 10 novices. Correlation analyses of relatedness ratings were performed to examine expert‐novice differences in overall knowledge structure. The intragroup correlation coefficients of experts were greater than the intragroup correlation coefficients of novices and the intergroup correlation coefficients between experts and novices. Hence, there existed structural differences of knowledge between experts and novices. To examine how experts differ from novices quantitatively and qualitatively in their knowledge chunking, the relatedness ratings of experts were averaged within the group to give a single set of relatedness ratings, and the relatedness ratings of novices were also averaged within the group to give a single set of relatedness ratings. Then the hierarchical clustering analyses were performed on the set of relatedness ratings for the experts group and on the set of relatedness ratings for the novices group, respectively. The hierarchical clustering of C concepts made by experts and the hierarchical clustering of C concepts made by novices indicated that novices had more but smaller knowledge chunks than experts for the common set of knowledge, and thatthe rough chunking of knowledge made by novices was qualitatively similar to the rough chunking of knowledge made by experts, although on a more detailed level qualitative differences still existed.