The relationship between abstract concept achievement and prior knowledge, formal reasoning ability and gender

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the achievement of some abstract concepts in molecular genetics as a dependent variable and a set of the following three independent variables: prior knowledge, formal reasoning, ability and gender. The major conclusions of this study are: (1) that prior knowledge and formal reasoning ability play a major role in students’ achievement of abstract concepts; and (2) that the effect of students’ prior knowledge on this achievement seems to exceed that of formal reasoning ability. Gender has little effect on the attainment of abstract concepts.