The Florida State University College of Education a Cognitive Model of Knowledge Transformation in Authoring Hypertext By

The primary purpose of this study was to propose a grounded theory of knowledge transformation in the hypertext authoring process. More specifically, the present study attempted to answer the following two questions: 1) what cognitive processes are involved in knowledge transformation through hypertext authoring and 2) how are these cognitive processes interrelated. For the first question, this study identified cognitive components associated with the knowledge transformation. For the second question, this study explained how the cognitive components interact within a theoretical framework of knowledge transformation. This study was an inquiry-oriented research to investigate how learners transform their prior knowledge and what cognitive processes are occurring during the hypertext authoring process. Specifically, this study endeavored to construct a cognitive model of knowledge transformation by identifying what cognitive components constitute the knowledge transformation process and how they are structured as a model. Since there has been no systematic scrutiny of the cognitive processes of knowledge transformation in authoring hypertext, an inductive data analysis, a qualitative research method, is employed to theorize a cognitive model of how and/or what cognitive processes are occurring. This study set three stages to elaborate data collection methods and delineate the cognitive process of knowledge transformation in authoring hypertext: 1) Model Initiation Stage, 2) Model Elaboration Stage, and 3) Model Theorization Stage. These three stages compose the iterative model saturation process of this study, which was based on not only iterative data analysis and comparative analysis but also an evolutionary design approach.