The literature on how children begin understanding subjectivity and point of view in fictional stories is considered. Examination of the oral stories of a five-year-old child indicated the ability to depict the beliefs, intentions, feelings, and perceptions of the story characters. Implications for assessment and interventions to help children…

Discusses the use of middle-school students' natural understanding of large numbers to introduce the concept of infinity. Presents activities that investigate infinite sets by demonstrating a one-to-one correspondence between the counting numbers and the given set. Examples include prime numbers, Fibonacci numbers, fractions, even and odd numbers,…

Discusses the frequent misconception displayed by students that chromosome structure is a function of chromosome number or ploidy. Provides detailed analyses of the evidence concerning the prevalence of this ploidy/structure misconception among students of introductory genetics and the potential sources for inaccurate communication that it can…

A control group of 40 eighth graders completed a unit on elements and compounds. An experimental group of 42 completed concept maps on the same topic. Results of a one-tailed T test demonstrated the usefulness of concept maps as advance organizers. (KR)

Explored whether there are changes with age in understanding the specific distinction between natural and human-made phenomena and whether an appreciation of this distinction influences children's beliefs about the possibility of altering or transforming different categories of objects. Found that this distinction, a powerful organizer for adults,…

Outlines the rationale, resources, and techniques for teaching K-12 physical science via toys. Includes 65 references and a list of 9 mail order suppliers of scientific toys. (MDH)

Discusses recent studies related to conceptual understanding in the domain of history, comparing the nature of understanding as found in history to that of other domains. Considers the role of sources in historical knowledge, the role of the historian, causation and explanation, and narrative exposition. (MJP)

Explored the role of folktales of deception in developing 3- and 4-year-olds' theory of mind. Found that the story's deceptions elicit discussions that change over successive readings as the child shows increasing comprehension of the deceptions and decreasing need of parental support. Parent's and child's gender influenced frequency and…

Two experiments examined preschoolers' and adults' relative reliance on visual and verbal information in identification of animals and machines. Findings include both children and adults can use either visual or verbal cues in categorization, and a stricter definition is used in identifying animals. Results suggest that a perceptual to conceptual…

Explores parallels in children's moral and mathematical judgments. Considers how children coordinate these judgments with concepts of authority, particularly when using conventionally determined symbol systems to convey logical and social meanings. (JPB)

Explores the relationships among science and engineering attitudes, physics conceptual understanding, and physics achievement for a population of college freshman engineering students. Assesses a sample of freshman engineering students (n=200) participating in an integrated curriculum with the Force Concepts Inventory (FCI), Mechanics Baseline…

Summarizes findings on infants' capacity for object segregation. Maintains that infants can use featural and experiential information for segregation and individuation purposes long before 12 months of age. Disputes the claim that formation of object categories awaits early word learning, but acknowledges that language may play a key role in…

Observed gesture and speech to investigate patterns of change in third and fourth graders' strategies for solving mathematical equivalence problems before and after an intervention. Children who received instruction were more likely to generate new strategies. Gradual change was more common. Abrupt strategy change was more common in children who…

Tested 3- to 7-year-olds' ability to calculate with whole numbers, fractions, and mixed-numbers, in a task in which an amount was displayed, then hidden. Subjects were to determine the hidden amount resulting when numbers were added or substracted. Found that, although fraction problems were more difficult than whole-number problems, competence on…

Using a pictorial computer simulation of a natural phenomenon, children's exploration processes and their construction of conceptual models were examined. The selected natural phenomenon was the variations of sunlight and heat of the sun experienced on the earth in relation to the positions of the earth and sun in space, and the subjects were…