background knowledge
What you already know
Background knowledge is information someone already possesses that helps them understand new material.
A reader's background knowledge of the Civil War affects how they interpret a novel set in that period.
Teachers assess students' background knowledge before introducing complex topics.
The term appears frequently in education and cognitive science: The test assumes considerable background knowledge of European history.
- contextCircumstances shaping meaning
- frame of referenceContext for judgment
- expertiseSkill from extensive practice
- foundationUnderlying support structure
- understandingMental comprehension of something
common sense · familiarity · life experience · experience · assumptions · schema · framework · baseline · education · cultural literacy · literacy · prerequisite · mental model · reference · big picture · informed · savvy · street smarts
- knowledgebook learning, encyclopedia, reference book, dictionary, thesaurus
- inferenceinference, logical inference, entailment, syllogism, deduction
- shared understandingmutual respect, shared values, shared beliefs, shared goals, consensus
- existenceexistence, being, lives, reality, life
- meaningmeaning, sense, significance, denotation, definition
- Prep Trainingprep course, basic training, prerequisites, fundamentals, basics
background knowledgeignorance
Absence of knowledge
blank slate · tabula rasa · knowledge gap · naivety · inexperience
background, knowledge, ground, backgrounds, grounded, grounding, grounds, knowing, knowingly