The study examines the use of weblogs in teacher education internships and its impact on student stress levels, self-efficacy, and reflective abilities. One hundred and seventy-six student teachers were randomly assigned to five groups. Four groups used weblogs (a) with emotion-focused or with problem-focused writing assignments in combination (b)…

Two experiments investigated relationships between state anxiety, memory processes, and children's performance on problem-solving tasks. Participants were second and sixth graders in a private elementary school in Redlands, California. In both experiments, subjects responded to three training and eight test problems presented in the introtact…

This report investigated the relationship between learning to program LOGO and the development of problem solving skills. Subjects were 133 students in grades 4-8 who had at least 30 hours of experience with both graphics and lists programming in Logo. Students were randomly assigned to one of three contextual groupings, which received graphics,…

Reported is a study to examine the effects of bilingualism on the ability to formulate scientific hypotheses or solutions to science problems by examining results of the same treatment motivating hypothesis formation given by the same teacher to classes of sixth-grade students ranging from monolingual English-speaking children to proficient…

The relationship between cognitive style and hypothesis-testing behavior was studied in 46 third grade children. It was found that field independent children process information more efficiently and according to a perfect focusing model. Efforts to enhance the information processing of field dependent children were described. (GDC)

This research investigates how individual differences in strategic abilities affect problem solving and, more particularly, the extent to which hypothesis-generating skills predict effective hypothesis testing. Additional questions concerned the effects of content and timing of instructional advice on children's problem-solving strategies, and…

When the science of linguistics is treated as a variety of ways for searching for truth and theory, rather than as a body of established theories, it can be taught successfully in the early grades. Some of the generalizations in linguistics (e.g., the articulatory description of differences between significant sounds, of the classification of…

In Alberta, 167 elementary students completed an awareness of technology survey in years 1 and 3 of a study. Even before technology education, children had ideas about testing structural strength. Development of testing knowledge was not sequential. Results may have been influenced by the various ways design technology was taught during year 2.…

Three studies of elementary school children's problem-solving procedures in intentional discrimination tasks are reported. Subjects were children selected from kindergarten and grades 2, 3, and 6. (Author/MP)

Discusses how students generate meanings for mathematical word problems, develops a generative predicational model to account for students' comprehension of word problems, and describes an empirical study of Israeli sixth graders that was designed to test the model. Talk aloud protocols of the students are analyzed, and hypotheses tested are…

Describes study designed to examine the effects of textual and/or computer animated orienting strategies and practice on rule-using and problem-solving skills of elementary school students using computer-assisted instruction. Four different versions of a lesson based on Isaac Newton's Law of Motion are described, and results are analyzed. (28…

To test the Lewis and Mayer simulation model (1987) for understanding compare problems, 3 experiments involving 39 college students and 15 third graders used registration of eye movements. Two experiments somewhat support the model, suggesting it holds true only when the task puts cognitive demands on the subject. (SLD)

Investigates teaching propositional logic (hypothesis testing and scientific reasoning) to preservice teachers enrolled in an elementary science method course (n=48). Results indicate that students scored higher on a posttest of the Propositional Logic Test than on the pretest. Authors conclude that even a brief intervention in logic can improve…

Describes study designed to investigate the effectiveness of personalizing verbal math problems on division of fractions for fifth and sixth grades using microcomputer-generated lessons. Treatment and control group results are analyzed, and results support the hypothesis that the personalized context group was superior in problem solving and had…