Examines developmental change in 4- 7- and 10-month-old infants' perceptions of correlations among attributes to determine whether relational information plays a role in abilities ranging from the perception and recognition of a simple pattern to the formation of a category. (HOD)

Activity theory posits that culturally organized actions guide the acquisition and organization of knowledge. This theory was applied to the organization of knowledge within a large milk processing plant. The dairy was found to be organized by social knowledge, yet individuals creatively synthesized several domains of knowledge to organize their…

Describes a study which used a discrimination-learning procedure to compare the ability of language-disordered and normal children to modify hypotheses. In a series of two-dimensional learning set and orthogonal problems, all children reached learning set criteria quickly; on orthogonal problems, language-disordered children performed…

Examines kindergartners' and second graders' knowledge of concept attribute importance and the children's use of this knowledge to categorize. (HOD)

Describes four experiments that examined the ability of second- and fifth-grade children and college adults to use "extra-list" cues to retrieve episodic information from memory. Shows that effective cue use varied with both the "match" of cue and event classification, and with the associative structure of permanent memory.…

An instructional design theory, based on direct empirical validation from a programmatic line of instructional systems research, is presented. Concept learning is viewed as a two-phase process: (1) formation of conceptual knowledge and (2) development of procedural knowledge. (Author/LMO)

Investigates effects of illustrations on 11-year-olds' comprehension of abstract and concrete passages. Reveals no significant effects due to the illustrations, although ability effects were found for literal, inferential, and total comprehension. (DF)

Approximately 500 nonscience major university chemistry students were surveyed to record their interpretations of specific chemical symbolism before presenting modern concepts of atomic and molecular structure, in an attempt to understand the thought processes entering students use as they interpret symbolism. Results are reported and discussed.…

This paper describe the intertwined nature of metacognition and conceptual change and proposes a taxonomy that classifies the types of metacognitive knowledge and activities that are likely to influence the change in students' conceptions. The initial conceptual change model is introduced to provide background and context for the theoretical…

Article considered experiments that tested the contentions of Piaget and Peel who believed that formal thinking is not established before 11-12 years of age. These studies were tied to the success achieved by pre-adolescent children in solving verbal three-term series problems. (Author/RK)

Article discussed the fact that children do not always learn what their teachers consider important, and also the problem that adults must understand somehow how children's minds work if they are to teach them successfully. (Author/RK)

This study is aimed at trying to discover the isolable characteristics of intelligence, of the kind of mental processes which result from it, and of the relationship between intelligence and the formation of concepts. (Author)

From a factor analysis of 33 variables on 83 first-grade children an animism factor, involving children's conceptions of life, was identified. Animism was found to be relatively independent of operational thought, Piagetian-type problem solving, and the ability to give causal explanations of physical phenomena. (Author)

Based in part on an M.A. thesis presented to the University of Illinois by Mr. Harris; deixis refers to those words which have a demonstrative or pointing function, e.g., the pronouns this'' or that''. (DD)

Results clearly demonstrated the existence of perceptual sets in children under 4 years. The interpretation of findings suggests a process whereby the present method was successful in creating the mediating conditions necessary for a perceptual set. (Authors)