Recognition errors of children in Grades 2, 4, and 6 were examined. Subjects learned words under intentional or incidental instructions and were tested immediately or 48 hours later. Subjects had to choose a target word from among acoustic, conceptual, associative and neutral distractors. The immediate recognition of 2nd-grade subjects was…

Forty-two college undergraduates, 28 women and 14 men, were classified as analytic, categorical, or relational according to their responses on the Sigel Cognitive Style Test and were randomly assigned to verbal or pictorial conditions. The subjects were presented a series of slides involving the paired association of 9 three-letter nonsense…

Although critical thinking is a pervasive educational objective, it remains inconsistently and imperfectly defined. The present paper attempts to sort out direct attempts at defining critical thinking. Such definitions are classified as representing one of three differing points of view: critical thinking as evaluation, critical thinking as…

This document describes the Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) model of concept formation. According to the CLD analysis, a single concept is learned in the following successive levels of attainment: concrete, identity, classification, and formal. The four levels are considered applicable to concepts that are defined (or could be defined)…

A series of studies on young children's use of the terms "same" and "different" are reported. The work began from the observation that young children could respond correctly to instructions involving "same" but were often incorrect in response to "different". This finding was replicated under a variety of experimental conditions and found to be…

Content and task dimensions of science items were studied using factor analytic techniques. These items were developed to measure concept attainment using a completely crossed design with 30 concepts and 12 tasks. Conventional factor analyses were performed, separately for boys and girls, for concept scores and for task scores. Three-mode factor…

THE GENERAL PROBLEM UNDER INVESTIGATION CONCERNED TWO PROCESSES OF CONCEPT FORMATION - THE DEDUCTIVE REASONING PROCESS AND THE ASSOCIATIVE PROCESS - EMPLOYED BY CHILDREN OF ELEMENTARY-SCHOOL AGE. IT WAS ASSUMED THAT BOTH OF THESE PROCESSES ARE FOUND IN VARYING DEGREES AMONG CHILDREN OF DIFFERENT AGES AND MENTAL ABILITIES, DEPENDING UPON THE…

Subjects differing in cognitive complexity formed impressions from either (1) three positive and three negative experimenter-selected traits; (2) three traits of each evaluation generated by the subject in a preliminary session; or (3) three experimenter-selected traits of one valence and three subject-generated traits of the opposite valence.…

The moral concepts entailed in Kohlberg's cognitive-developmental theory of moral judgment are examined and the underlying meta-ethical position is criticized. (Editor)

The article describes the framework of two training workshops intended to help elementary classroom teachers make better use of open-ended questions and activities which foster high-level generalizations. Tables provide a summary of thinking models utilized in gifted education and sample teaching units. Eighteen generalizations for the social…

Tested the hypothesis that fourth-graders have a greater tendency than first-graders to represent transformations as ordered series of beginning, middle, and end states. Predominantly constructed states of fourth-graders were components of continuous movements or transformations, whereas those of first-graders related to the experimenters' on the…

The stock-in-trade of trainers are the models, frameworks, and structures used for teaching, coaching, and counseling. The authors argue that the better the conceptual models that managers and trainers use for managing their thinking, the better performance they will achieve. (JOW)

Tests the distinction between inferring new categories on the basis of property information (predicted to be difficult) and inferring new properties on the basis of category information (predicted to be easier) among 57 preschool children. (HOD)

Previous research in the field of student learning in higher education has mostly focused on conceptual issues of students at the individual concept or task level. There has been little research of students' conceptions of whole subjects, and virtually no previous research of students' feelings of their conceptual experiences. This paper aims to…

This paper examines the question of whether the introduction and use of the function machine representation as a scaffolding device helps undergraduates enrolled in a developmental algebra course to form a rich, foundational concept of function. It describes students' developing understanding of function as an input/output process and as an…