Two experiments with a total of 37 college students showed that metacognitive training influenced strategic flexibility and metacognition of students. The studies also found it was much easier to enhance performance on closed problems than with open problems calling for creativity. (Author/DB)

Describes a study of concept mapping as a means of learning problem-solving skills. Concludes that the concept mapping subjects were significantly more successful at solving biological test questions than were the controls. Reports no significant differences between cooperative and individual mapping and mixed results for gender. (DK)

Synthesizes a conceptual framework (or linguistic-conceptual systems) for thinking about conceptual frameworks, discusses their potential for helping users develop competence in applying them to unstructured problem solving, and outlines instructional implications. The theory-practice gap arises partly from failure to conceptualize the nature of…

The strategies of four men with mild mental retardation when performing calendar calculations were investigated. Results suggested that subjects were aware of calendar rules and regularities, including knowledge of the 14 different calendar templates. Their strategies were rigidly applied and relied heavily on memory, with little manipulation of…

This study with 203 college students used structural equation analysis and found that the relationship between students' academic stress and course grades was influenced by problem-focused coping and motivation, but not by emotion-focused coping. Greater academic stress covaried with lower course grades. (DB)

This paper outlines a technique for enhancing the effectiveness of careers thinking by identifying and challenging tacit beliefs about career success. These beliefs can be understood as social scripts, i.e. cognitive structures that simplify common decision scenarios. An important contribution of careers counselling is to enable clients to…

In this study we examined response patterns in exchanges between males and females and their effects on gender participation in five online debates. Students classified messages into arguments, evidence, critiques, and elaborations while posting messages to the debates to facilitate argumentation and the sequential analysis of message-response…

This paper on the nature of expertise discusses implications of findings of an earlier study into the problem-solving, problem-finding and thought processes of 3 groups: 20 professional artists (experts), 20 semiprofessional artists (non-experts), and 20 non-artists (novices), each group consisting of 10 male and 10 female adults. Subjects were…

Examined were preschoolers' naturally occurring behaviors during their attempts to gain, maintain, and regain materials, space, and peers' attention/interaction in the classroom. The major question addressed was, Are there differences between "most" and "least" competent preschoolers in terms of (1) frequency and type of…

This study focused on analyzing children's difficulties with two-step mathematical word problems. Seventy-one fifth-grade children in Puerto Rico were individually observed solving five problems. Two of these were two-step problems; the remaining three were one-step problems with the same mathematical structures as the components of the two-step…

Nine undergraduate science and non-science majors (novices) who had recently completed their first college classroom study of genetics and seven genetics graduate students and biology instructors (experts) were videotaped as they attempted to solve a selected group of seven moderately complex classifical genetics problems and three Piagetian tasks…

Reported are early results of a research program that aims to improve children's mathematics learning by developing attitudes and strategies that support processes of interpretation and meaning construction in mathematics. Considerable research shows that many children learn mathematics as symbol manipulation rules, without meaning. Collaborative…

Mathematics is generally regarded as a well-structured discipline by educators and cognitive scientists. This leads to the analysis of the suggestion that practitioners begin investigating possibilities for teaching mathematics as if it were an ill-structured discipline, with more than one interpretation for mathematical statements. The paper is…

Because previous research by Bayman and Mayer (1983) suggests that individuals who attempt to learn their first computer language develop a variety of misconceptions of the meanings of individual programming statements, this study investigated whether it is possible to enhance beginning programmers' understanding of the programming statements…

This chapter from a longer work concerns the ability of children to solve arithmetic word problems. The studies reviewed suggest that, with age, children's improved ability to solve word problems primarily involves an increase in the complexity of conceptual knowledge required to understand the situations described in those problems. Considered in…