Reasoning skills are needed in the future work life. As such, it is important that reasoning skills be assessed in higher education, both in the selection phase and during education. This study aims to describe the instruments that are used to assess reasoning skills in higher education. The ultimate goal is to provide information upon which…

College undergraduates were given Zelniker and Jeffrey's modification of the Matching Familiar Figures Test to assess its psychometric credibility and construct validity for adult problem solvers. The modified test has improved internal consistency and stability over the original. The construct's possible correlation with general problem solving…

This study examined whether familiarity with content influences performance on conditional reasoning problems of the form P implies Q independently of ease of generation of specific examples of "Q and not-P." Results indicated that increased content familiarity resulted in higher performance levels. (Author/JAZ)

This paper provides experimental demonstration of remindings during learning and examines their effect on performance, as well as effects of practice and difficulty. Three experiments examining the occurrence, effects, and conditions of remindings are presented, and the implications for theories of cognitive skill learning are discussed.…

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…

In 3 experiments, 93, 97, and 86 college students, respectively, learned how to solve 20 verbal analogy problems and took transfer and memory tests. Results are inconsistent with active responding theory and further indicate that schema induction is maximized when the schemas are made salient and the cognitive system is not overloaded. (SLD)

The performance of 57 Mexican American bilingual college students on Spanish and English versions of problem solving tasks was investigated. The tasks included word recognition, sentence verification, reading span, syllogisms, and reasoning. The results indicated that the subjects used similar cognitive skills in performing both the Spanish and…

The importance of learning styles to student retention and career decision guidance is considered. Learning style is the way people process information and solve problems. Research on right and left brain processing, which indicates that the left hemisphere controls thoughts that are predominately rational and the right hemisphere controls…

Reports results of a study investigating the ability of college students to solve problems using proportional reasoning. Also discusses implications for consideration of Piagetian cognitive level of students in planning college courses. (CS)

Critical thinking comprises the mental processes, strategies, and representations people use to solve problems, make decisions, and learn new concepts. The study of critical thinking combines the educational, philosophical, and psychological traditions of thought. R. Ennis offers a philosophical taxonomy suggesting that critical thinking results…

Investigates the effect of increase of the M demand of chemistry problems, having the same logical structure, on performance of students having different functional M capacity, cognitive style, and formal operational reasoning patterns. (Author/YP)

The development of the Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT), a group test of formal reasoning ability that requires students to solve problems and to justify the solutions obtained, is presented. Procedures are described for investigations of internal consistency, construct validity, and criterion-related validity. Items used in prior research serve as…

Pretests measuring critical thinking ability and mental alertness were administered to 72 first-year college students at the beginning of an introductory computer programing course. Posttests administered at the end of the semester showed significant improvement in both areas, indicating that instruction in programing improves students' critical…

A historical review of educational literature concerning measurement of cognitive skills is provided, with reference to test construction. Focus is on assessing abilities beyond recall of information. In light of interest in assessing critical thinking in the California Assessment Program, it must be noted that concern with critical thinking is…

This study was undertaken to examine what would happen if individuals who are intrinsically motivated to perform a cognitive problem-solving task were offered a contingent extrinsic monetary incentive for doing so. Sixty male and 60 female undergraduates at the University of South Florida used microcomputers to complete a cognitive task requiring…