The results of survey of secondary school biology students used to access misconceptions about cells are presented. A distinction between conceptions, misconceptions, and nonconceptions is drawn in terms of secondary school biology concepts. The resilience of misconceptions is discussed. (CW)

Studied children's transitive inference where representation of premises provided contradictory information depending on position of two elements in a A, B, C series. Eight-year olds did significantly better on the more complex problems than did six-year olds, suggesting the presence of a developmental sequence of algorithms that enable children…

Reviews four books: (1) "A Dynamic Systems Approach to Development: Applications" (Linda B. Smith and Esther Thelen, Eds.); (2) "The Psychology of Gender" (Anne E. Beall and Robert J. Sternberg, Eds.); (3) "Children's Understanding: The Development of Mental Models" (Graeme S. Halford); and (4) "Adolescent Storm…

A study documented 10 college students' understanding of the limit concept and the factors affecting changes in that understanding. Encouragement by the researchers for the students to change their common informal models of limit to more formal conceptions were met with extreme resistance. (Author/JJK)

The development of children's causal knowledge is investigated by analyzing changes in the content and form of the explanations they generate across the age span of three to nine years. The balance of incremental versus fundamental change and the forms each takes in children coming to understand the working of gears are examined. Three phases of…

Assessed was the level of thinking of 140 students who had been placed in developmental algebra as entering college freshmen. Scores on the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking, Scholastic Aptitude Tests, college placement tests; high school grade point average, and developmental algebra final grade were analyzed. Group characteristics are…

In two parallel one-year studies, solution strategies for subtraction number facts and achievement patterns of matched groups of first graders in two different instructional programs were examined. Significant differences between groups were found favoring the strategy approach. (Author/CW)

Investigated was the learning of the mathematical uses of "more,""fewer," and "less" at a very early stage in the development of ideas. (CW)

People experience mental incongruity when there is a discrepancy between a standard and their own experience of a situation or behavior. The influence of adolescents' standards and mental incongruity on the development of their identity (N=706) was studied in both work and relational domains using structural equation models. (Author/EMK)

Compared the effects of constructivist instruction and instruction based on texts and demonstration on third-graders' conceptualization of force. Found that constructivist instruction was more effective. Patterns of reasoning related to force were identified in levels of conceptualization. (JPB)

Emphasizes the benefits of cooperation between researchers in developing a comprehensive model of cognitive development that considers the constraints of human brain structures and the interplay of general laws of development and individual differences in developmental pathways within the context of social and cultural environments. (Author)

Lists nine strategies that help students move from being an "unreflective thinker" to a "master thinker," discussing in detail the last five strategies: reshaping character; dealing with egocentrism; redefining the way to see things; getting in touch with emotions; and analyzing group influences on life. (PGS)

Effective belief-desire reasoning requires both specialized representational capacities--the capacity to represent the mental states as such--as well as executive selection processes for accurate performance on tasks requiring the prediction and explanation of the actions of social agents. Compromised belief-desire reasoning in a given population…

The proposals concerning working memory outlined in this paper involve the architecture of working memory, the reasoning mechanisms that draw on it, and the ways in which working memory may develop with age. Ways of assessing task demands and children's working memory capacities are also considered. It is noted that there is long-standing evidence…

This study investigated the propositions that (1) the expressed preference for formal-deductive style of thinking and mathematics anxiety are negatively correlated; (2) the preferred cognitive style is positively correlated with the respondent's self-assessment of mathematical ability; and (3) those expressing a preference for the analyst style of…