One of the important cognitive strategies individuals use when learning is to organize many bits of information into integrated patterns called chunks. To investigate the process of chunking spatial information, 32 college students integrated two cognitive maps either before or after an interfering task. The combined spatial layout formed either a…

Reports the results of a study of the relationship between cognitive style and achievement in a modern elementary science program. (JR)

Recent research indicates that content structure is, to some extent, mapped into cognitive structure. This study examines whether or not mapping of content structure into cognitive structure is related to students' ability to recall the content. Findings indicate that the cognitive structure of students with high recall ability does not resemble…

The class of media characteristics, which is generic to them and which may be of potentially great relevance to learning, is the way in which media select, highlight, structure, and present information, i.e., their "languages" or symbol systems. How, if at all, and why do symbol systems, in general, differentially relate to cognition and learning?…

The general hypotheses derived from a series of six experiments in instructional theory were as follows: that the individually optimal reading sequence of juxtaposed, but mutally related, prose text depends on learning goal and pre-knowledge; that adult learners are able to approach this reading sequence through their own decisions; and that…

Reports a study which reinforces the assumption that objectives enable learners to retain essential points and to organize complex cognitive processes needed for successful inquiry-oriented learning experiences. Results that knowledge of science processes (POST Scores) contributes more to achievement variance than the use of behavioral objectives.…

The results of this study support earlier contentions that standardized intellectual ability and school achievement tests are quite heterogeneous with respect to cognitive style requirements. The findings indicate, however, that additional variance was accounted for by cognitive style measures beyond that of verbal and nonverbal IQ relation to…

The major works of the child/developmental psychologist and educator Wayne Dennis are listed in this annotated bibliography. (One-hundred-twenty-one citations are included.) For ease of use, the bibliography has been subdivided into the major headings of aging (7 citations); animistic thinking (9 citations); cross-cultural studies (8 citations);…

Thirty-three second graders participated in a study to discover the value of teaching concepts using picture attribute chunking (PAC). It was hypothesized that PAC would yield superior concept learning performances compared to a picture attribute list (PAL) treatment and a word-alone treatment. The children, selected on the basis of a pretest that…

Research on how communicating human beings produce and understand language has focused mostly on what language is, less on how language is processed, and little on who produces and understands language. However, the interaction between what, who, and how is very significant. The importance of who does languaging is related both to the cognitive…

A study was designed to investigate forms of human internal knowledge organization that facilitate the recall of information or its use for complex problem solving tasks. Three experiments, using college and high school physics students, were performed. The effects were studied by: (1) formulating explicit models of organization; (2) using…