The set of goals and plans that a writer might select to accomplish a given piece of writing is guided by the writer's conception of knowledge. In terms of cognitive theory, conceptions of knowledge may be viewed as epistemological schemata--structured clusters of knowledge about the nature of knowledge itself. William Perry's scheme of the…

Explanations for memory development have tended to focus on acquistion of general strategies and metaknowledge. Recently, emphasis has been given to the knowledge base as a whole, including general world-knowledge and domain-specific knowledge and procedures. Evidence is presented from the memory development literature showing why strategies and…

Because understanding pictures is a significant aid to readers, this paper explores research on picture interpretation. The paper describes the complexity of the process and states that the ability to interpret pictures seems to proceed from the simple to the complex: from concrete experiences with pictures to the abstract interpretation of…

This book is intended to give teachers and student teachers a better understanding of the thinking of adolescent students in science lessons and to indicate the difficulties such students have in understanding the more abstract or formal ideas with which they are presented. It is practical in its orientation as the issues discussed are illustrated…

A study was conducted to investigate the relationship between the intellectual maturity of college students and evidence of rhetorical maturity in their writing--specifically, why some students write better than others, since general language abilities cannot account for all the differences between good and poor writing. By focusing on college…

Reports the results of a survey of current textbooks in developmental psychology for common citation of pre-1940 publications. The historical significance of the contributions of individual persons and landmark studies are discussed. (SDH)

Provides some background from the biological and behavioral sciences relevant to the education of young children. The author concludes that experience gained by age 8 (particularly during the years 0 to 5) matters for the rest of an individual's life. (PEB)

More research is needed to distinguish between actual and artificial sex differences, and greater attention should be paid to individual differences, since at this point sex appears to account for very little variability in human performance. (JC)

Encompassing only human and excluding animal studies, this review surveys the literature on protein-calorie malnutrition and its possible role in retarding psychological, intellectual or behavioral development. Areas reviewed include types of protein-calorie malnutrition, the effects of malnutrition on brain development, cross-sectional and…

Reported is an investigation of the development of children's thinking in relation to biological education, involving over 200 twelve-year-old students from five comprehensive British schools. While the students' ability to name animals was considered "good," they had trouble recognizing drawings of plants and their understanding of…

Discusses the value of elementary science in promoting both cognitive and affective growth in children. (JR)

Discusses some of the problems, theories and methods involved in helping poor and minority group children progress to higher levels of educational achievement and makes several concrete suggestions to this end. (SF)