Children aged 3 to 8 years old and adults were tested on a reality–fantasy distinction task. They had to judge whether particular entities were real or fantastical, and response times were collected. We further manipulated whether the entity is a specific character or a generic fantastical entity. The results indicate that children, unlike adults,…

First-, third-, and fifth-grade children played a board game with another same-age, same-sex child. Results demonstrated why young children are as likely to respond competitively as cooperatively under shared-reward conditions. (BJD)

Tests the hypotheses that superiority of semantic over phonetic encoding increases with age, and that the superiority of multiple-dimension encoding over single-dimension encoding emerges with age. Elementary, secondary, and graduate students judged words on various dimensions of the semantic differential in an incidental memory task. (Author/SS)

The main purpose of the research was to make a comparative study of: (1) trial-and-error learning, in which a subject performs and is provided with knowledge of results; and (2) observational learning, in which a subject either observes the performance of another subject or is otherwise provided with equivalent information as to the correctness…

Investigated the effectiveness of modeling procedures alone and complemented by the appropriate rule statement on the production of plurals. Subjects were 20 normal and 20 retarded children who were randomly assigned to one of two learning conditions and who received either affective or informative social reinforcement. (Author/SDH)

Examined fourth and fifth graders' reactions to completing group-administered, positive and negative peer nomination techniques. Found that no child reported having hurt feelings or knowing of anyone else having hurt feelings. Determined that the condition of minimal risk of harm, harm not greater than children might encounter in daily life, was…

Observers viewed silent videotapes of elementary school children listening to a lesson. Some of the stimulus children were listening to either a very easy or a very difficult lesson; consequently, their nonverbal behavior occurred naturally and spontaneously. Other stimulus children were instructed to pretend (role play) that they understood or…

The research concerned the association of neutral objects, such as nonsense syllables, with rewards, such as money and candy, in children. Thirty-six subjects were obtained from grades two through six of local public elementary schools in Nashville, Tennessee. Associations between neutral objects and rewards were formed in a task concerning…

A series of five experiments was designed and administered to 679 elementary and junior high school students over a 2-year period to test the relevance of Jean Piaget's concept of conservation to musical learning. Musical tasks consisting of stimulus patterns and systematic variations of these patterns were designed for each experiment, and…

After 10 years of teaching rule-driven, procedure-based, algorithm-oriented mathematics, an elementary teacher describes how she began to rethink her teaching style after returning to school for a graduate degree. Her rethinking is based on the first of four student teaching events that spanned an entire school year in which she used the…