This volume reports on several aspects of the Bristol (England) study of language development in pre-school children. The study was comprised of two overlapping investigations: the first covering the range from 15 to 42 months and the second, the range from 39 to 66 months. The introductory chapter gives an overview, and provides a statement of…

This experiment tested the hypothesis that combining operational strategies with free verbalization facilitates development of competencies, percepts of self-efficacy, and interest in arithmetic activities. Children lacking division skills received treatments in which they either verbalized division strategies, verbalized freely, did both, or did…

The results of an investigation of the development of children's knowledge of addition and subtraction concepts before they start school are detailed. The purpose of the study was to test the predictions of the three-stage model about the distinctions between the last two stages. Twenty-four children participated in the investigation. None of…

Volume 8, No. 2 of Investigations in Science Education contains critiques of articles dealing with science education research about various aspects of instruction. Also included are five responses from authors of articles to critiques of their work as it has been reported in professional journals. In total, this volume contains 10 critiques and…

Although student evaluation of instruction forms are used by colleges to provide information to instructors and administrators, personality and cognitive style variables of the student raters are rarely considered. A cognitive developmental measure, the Paragraph Completion Test (PCT), two cognitive style measures, Bieri's Modified Rep Test and…

Descriptions of language learning and reading behaviors are presented, in this paper, within the context of a model of cognitive processing that reflects a continuum for the logical procession of language skills in human maturation and learning. Portions of the paper differentiate silent and oral reading in terms of cognitive load, which is a…

Since the traditional information-based curriculum does not adequately meet contemporary needs, it should be replaced by a process-oriented curriculum that fosters skills in information processing, concept formation, problem solving, and other higher order cognitive processes in conjunction with the development of language skills. There are many…

This report offers the premise that a psychology of reading instruction has a set of questions of its own, questions that concern the ways in which the environmental interventions called instruction interact with cognitive processes to modify competence. The report discusses two streams of psychological research as they relate to reading…

This eight-year follow-up study, examining the educational impact of a compensatory early childhood program upon disadvantaged students, compares mean scores of the treatment group of 410 former preschool and all day kindergarten students with those of a comparison group of 141 traditional half day kindergarten students. Empirical evidence shows…

The effect of month of birth on skill development in language, reading, and mathematics was examined separately for kindergarten and first grade children. The study looked at the strength of the relationship at the beginning and end of the school year and as a function of the type of program in which the child was enrolled. One hundred and…

This paper explores the relationship between invitational and moral education. Invitational education is defined as a system which intentionally invites students to perceive themselves as valuable, able, and responsible and to behave accordingly. Moral education is a process based on Lawrence Kohlberg's levels of moral reasoning which advocates…

Students in grades 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, and college were timed as they produced the answers to simple addition problems or verified a given problem as true or false. First graders clearly relied on a counting process for their performance, as advanced by the Groen and Parkman "min" (for minimum addend) model. Third grade appears to be a…

A philosophical orientation to teacher education would be a critical orientation, laying stress on the clarification of terminology, on the understanding of the logic of subject matter, and on a consideration of "what the known demands," or action deemed necessary from content knowledge. Fragmentation would be overcome, and a synthesis would be…

Much of the television American children watch is violent in content. The evidence indicating that this programing increases children's aggressive behavior is not clear-cut, and some studies have shown a decrease in children's aggressive behavior. A study was conducted to test a more developmental perspective on the effects of violent television:…

Metacognitive knowledge is the concern of this paper; specifically children's knowledge of factors, such as their ability and effort, which affect their performance and their awareness of the integration of these factors. How a young child's familarity with his or her own mind might facilitate reasoning competence with respect to aspects--such as…