Investigates the use of intervention rationales that matched the participants' positions of beliefs in marriage therapy. Participants rated each treatment recommendation for acceptability. A variety of interventions were utilized. The interventions paired with rationales. Participant positions were rated significantly more acceptable than…

Examines the writings of J. Dewey and L. Vygotsky as part of the turn-of-the-century human sciences, highlighting the way in which each functioned to bring the new democratic rationalities into the governing of individual conduct, and tracing the origins of constructivist pedagogy. Contains approximately 200 references. (SLD)

Finnish fifth-graders (n=20) and sixth-graders (n=23) worked in teams in a Lego/Logo-Control Lab to complete Lego design activities. Observations showed that they became familiar with automation technology but their skills were not always up to their ideas. Activities based on real-life situations gave them ownership and engaged them in learning.…

Technology is concerned with making and using artifacts. Piagetian and Vygotskyan frameworks provide a basis for a psychological model of instrumentation. Both the pragmatic and instrumental perspectives are needed in order to understand cognition in technological contexts. (SK)

Inquires into empirical, functional, and theoretical arguments made to substantiate theses of retreat, loss of meaning, or untimeliness of general pedagogics. Discusses recent propositions for reorganizing general pedagogics as a subdiscipline of educational science. Argues that general pedagogics could lead to new pedagogical interrelations if…

Discusses the use of games and toys in teaching fractions, independent thinking, and organizational skills to elementary students. Explains the basis of the method in a constructivist approach. (JOW)

Discusses the difference between traditional classrooms, where teachers just disseminate information from textbooks, and constructivist-based, student-centered classrooms, where in the acquisition of knowledge, mental energies are expended by both the deliverer and the receiver. The end result of a constructivist classroom is a learning…

Construction of nurses' identity through learning experiences is significantly influenced by peers. Development of learning environments that maximize educational benefits is a complex question involving concept acquisition and transferability. (SK)

Presents selected literature that exemplifies (in theory and in practice) four methodological frameworks that have found wide application in qualitative studies: symbolic interactionism, phenomenological description, constructivist hermeneutics, and critical studies. (Author/LRW)

Reviews Corsaro's work on the shift toward sociological approaches to research on children. Notes that the book fills a need for textbook on the sociology of childhood; documents the need for concern about children's well-being; presents a new analytical framework for the sociological study of children and of childhood; and challenges traditional…

Proposes an entirely different perspective and challenges both the current para-dogmatic character of constructivism in some quarters of mathematics education and the dismissive attitude towards 'humanist non-sense' in others. Discusses the linguistic aspects of mathematical knowledge through a language acquisition device and a language…

Five key changes have taken place in distance education: (1) shift from multimedia-based to online education; (2) shift from transmission to constructivist models; (3) growing acceptance and expansion of distance education; (4) distance methods adapted across education; and (5) evolution from modernist/bureaucratic forms to postmodern, focusing on…

Looks at the author's growth and development as a classroom teacher between his third to sixth years as a teacher. Uses Habermas's theory of knowledge and human interests and a number of forms of constructivism to describe that growth. Contains 26 references. (JRH)

Examines the reasoning behind views of atoms and molecules held by students (n=48) and investigates how mental models may assist or hamper further instruction in chemistry. Reports that students prefer models of atoms and molecules that depict them as discrete, concrete structures. Recommends that teachers develop student modeling skills and…

Using a Vygotskian framework it is claimed that social practices influence mental functions, and thus vocational knowledge is shaped by history, community, and ontogeny. Key elements of practice are shaped by context, so there is no guarantee that transfer to another setting will occur. (SK)