To better determine the cognitive abilities needed for computer programming, a study was done using 41 junior and senior level college students majoring in social and behavioral sciences at a Los Angeles area university. The subjects were first tested to determine their cognitive abilities with regard to spatial ability, field…

Students and instructors may be frustrated with students' lack of understanding of sociological concepts. We suggest that the difficulty of teaching and learning sociology is that sociological concepts and relationships require the use of abstract reasoning patterns. Many students are unaccustomed to using these abstract reasoning patterns. We use…

The relationship between perceptual structure and individual differences in cognitive ability was studied through a computerized inductive reasoning task performed by 100 college undergraduates at Cleveland State University (Ohio). Measures included two psychometric tests and a set of four computerized cognitive tasks. Two components of perceptual…

Investigated were the relation between functional M-capacity and student performance in solving chemistry problems of increasing M-demand. Student performance decreased as the M-demand of the problems increased. (Author/YP)

Sex differences on Perry's stages of epistemological development were investigated in a study of 100 freshmen (50 men and 50 women) at a large midwestern university. A semi-structured interview probed six domains related to Perry's theory, including the role of the learner, instructor, and peers in the learning situation, the question of…

This paper (1) examines correlations of pre- and post-course scores on the Theoretical Orientation to Reading Profile with scores on the Gregorc Style Delineator; (2) augments these correlations with qualitative data from journals and interviews; and (3) proposes that, given this data, the supervisory support structures needed for pre- and…

Reviews the current literature concerning prior knowledge in an attempt to clarify problems with the terminology. Identifies the three main problems: lack of definition or vagueness, nominal versus real definitions, and different names/same constructs or same name/different constructs. Includes a conceptual map of prior knowledge terminology. (MJP)