Chapter 6, page 101
As an example, let’s consider how novices and experts might differ in their concepts about poetry
(Zeitz, 1994). Figure 6.6a shows a concept map representing a novice student’s conceptions; Figure 6.6b
shows just a few of the conceptions of a more expert student. (A full representation of the student’s
conceptions would take many pages.) Figure 6.6 highlights that the novice has fewer concepts in long-term
memory, and their concepts are also less richly interconnected.
Ɣ There are many fewer concepts in the novice’s conceptual structures than in the expert’s novice
structures. The novice knows only a few types of poetry, and only two components of poems. The
expert knows many, many more.
Ɣ The novice’s ideas are organized in a very rudimentary hierarchy. There are fewer categories along
which the novice’s ideas are organized. “Funny poems” are categorized together with “haiku” and
“poems that rhyme” as different types of poems, even though these do not seem to belong together
coherently in the same group. Concepts are arranged in a flat hierarchy, with only two levels. In
contrast, the expert’s ideas have a much richer hierarchical organization, and similar concepts are
grouped appropriately together.
Ɣ The novice’s concepts are interconnected with few links. The expert’s ideas have many links
connecting them. To avoid overwhelming Figure 6.6b with lines, only a very few of these links are
shown in red. The expert knows, for example, that similes and metaphors can foster imagery and that
similes and metaphors are closely related. The expert knows which elements of poems are present in
sonnets. The red lines shown in Figure 6.6b are only the beginning. The expert is aware of dozens or
even hundreds of interrelationships among the concepts shown in the diagram.
On most topics they learn in school, students are initially novices. A goal of instruction is to help novices
develop the richer and better organized conceptual structures of experts (Chi, 2006a).
Organization by Surface Similarity
In addition to having fewer concepts with fewer interconnections than experts, the novice’s concepts
are organized differently from experts’. Specifically, novice’s concepts are organized by surface
similarity, whereas experts’ concepts are organized by deep similarity (Chi, 2006b; Chi, Feltovich, &
Glaser, 1981). Surface similarity is similarity based on external appearances. A real beagle and a
realistic-looking and feeling toy stuffed beagle are similar at the level of surface similarity. They both look
and feel the same on the outside. Deep similarity, on the other hand, is similarity based on important
underlying relationships that lie beneath external appearances. Deep similarity is similarity at a level of
important conceptual relationships even when surface similarity is low. At a level of deep similarity, a
living beagle is more similar to a living fish than it is to a toy beagle, because a real beagle and a fish
turtle share an underlying, deep similarity of being alive. This is true even though the living beagle and the
living fish do not look similar, and hence do not have a high degree of surface similarity.
Novices tend to organize their knowledge by surface similarity, whereas experts tend to organize by
deep similarity. For example, preschool children are novices on the topic of kinship relationships (the
relationships among mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, uncles, aunts, and so on). As novices, they often
classify kin by surface similarity. Consider the three people depicted in Figure 6.7. Many preschool
children will say that Jim and Bob are Sarah’s uncle, because both Jim and Bob look like typical uncles,
even though Bob is only a friend of the family. They do not think that Sam can be an uncle because Sam
does not look like an uncle; he is far too young. In contrast, adults are experts on kinship relationships,
and they classify Sam and Jim as Sarah’s uncle because both are Sarah’s father’s brothers. The adult
classifies people into kin categories based on underlying family relationships, not surface appearance
(Keil, 1989).