The purpose of this study was to quantify the relationship between pre-service teachers' spatial visualisation skills and their mathematical creativity through problem-posing tasks. A group of 62 pre-service teachers completed the Purdue Spatial Visualisation test and took the mathematical creativity test through problem-posing tasks. Pearson's…

Using multiple representations of a problem can reveal the relationship between complex concepts by expressing the same mathematical condition differently and can contribute to the meaningful learning of mathematical concepts. The purpose of this study is to assess the performances of mathematics teacher-candidates on trigonometry problems…

In this article, I will extend the falling ball method to measure the viscosity of liquids regardless of the degree of their viscosity. For this, I will show that one can obtain a measurement of the terminal velocity of a falling spherical ball in a viscous liquid by solving numerically the equation of motion which describes the dynamics of the…

A new form of the Purdue Elementary Problem Solving Inventory which presents real-life problem situations as three-dimensional models is described and developmental data is presented. Second and fourth graders in an advantaged and a disadvantaged school were given either the model version or the original slide version of the Inventory. The model…

Sex differences in speed of solving mental rotation problems were replicated but college men and women were alike in frequency of use of algorithms to solve problems. The most frequent algorithm involved encoding stimuli in working memory, mental rotation of one to orientation of the other, comparison, and response. (Author/RD)

Undergraduates were given complex figural analogies items, and eye movements were observed under three types of feedback: (1) elaborate feedback; (2) subjects verbalized their thinking and application of rules; and (3) no feedback. Both feedback conditions enhanced the rule-governed information processing during inductive reasoning. (Author/GDC)

Fifty-five college students participated in a study investigating the effect of field dependence and time limitations on the solution of mathematics word problems and visual interpretation problems. Field-independent (n=25) and field-dependent (n=30) subjects represented the upper and lower thirds on the Hidden Figures Test. Field-independent…

Two experiments examined possible negative transfer in nonexperts from the use of pictorial examples in a laboratory design problem-solving situation. In Experiment 1, 89 participants were instructed to "think aloud" and were assigned to 1 of 3 conditions: (a) control (standard instructions), (b) fixation (inclusion of a problematic…

Fifty-five college students were assessed on four types of cognitive and metacognitive measures in math, language, and visual/spatial tasks. They were measures on self-reported general metacognitive skills, predicted performance, metacognitive behaviors, and actual performance. The students' self-reported assessments of their ability on a general…

The differences between learning disabled (LD) and non-LD children's problem-solving protocols were analyzed during a picture arrangement task. Although the groups of 29 LD and 27 non-LD children were comparable in global mental processing and task performance, LD children had difficulty with representing problems and deleting irrelevant…

In 2 experiments, 280 college students studied animations depicting a mechanical operation with concurrent oral narration of the process, successive animation and narration, animation alone, narration alone, or no instruction (the control group). Results are consistent with a dual coding model of retention and problem solving. (SLD)

Tests of spatial ability were analyzed for their analog (visuospatial) and nonanalog (verbal reasoning) components, using factor analyses of items and test scores. The self-selected sample consisted of over 2000 clients (average age about 26 or 27) employing the Johnson O'Connor Research Foundation's aptitude evaluation services in 12 metropolitan…