Final answer:
The Comprehend/Learn step in Lawrence and Nohria's Four Drive Theory includes understanding new material, being proactive in learning, and engaging in critical analysis and evaluation to increase knowledge and skills.
Step-by-step explanation:
The Comprehend/Learn step in Lawrence and Nohria's Four Drive Theory involves the process of acquiring new skills or knowledge and the effort it takes to assimilate and understand new information. It's about being proactive and engaging with the material, which includes looking up unfamiliar words, taking notes, asking questions, and making sense of the contextual environment of the text or the rhetorical situation. It's also about developing strategies to analyze or evaluate texts critically and write about this understanding. Comprehension and learning, as components of the Four Drive Theory, lead to improved critical analysis, understanding, and evaluation.
For example, learning new skills such as driving requires attention to encode information about operating a vehicle, but over time, this information becomes second nature. In an academic context, students use various reasoning strategies to maintain optimal levels of arousal, which helps to stay motivated. As knowledge increases, so does the ability to critically engage with reading, writing, and thinking tasks, thereby enhancing one's critical thinking and analytical abilities.