Reading Volume and
Declarative Knowledge
In other studies, we have focused even more
directly on content knowledge by addressing
the issue of “Where Does Knowledge Come
From?”. Stanovich and Cunningham (1993)
examined general ability, reading volume, and
exposure to other media sources as determinants
of individual differences in content
knowledge. This study contained a particularly
stringent test of the role of reading volume and
individual differences in knowledge acquisition
among 268 college students. We administered
five different measures of general knowledge to
the students. Then we stacked the deck against
reading volume once again by statistically entering
four measures of general ability before looking
at the contribution of reading volume: high