Perceived causality for events seems to be age-related, the cognitive structures of older children being more complex. The influence of age on interpersonal perception was examined by comparing the preferred causal attributions of youngsters in grades 5-13 for teacher behavior. A pilot study produced eight explanations of teacher behavior: (1)…

Identified in this study are the factors which affect the user's capacity to seek out and utilize information, and the factors which serve as obstacles to information use. Factors relating to both organizational and individual use include level of use, user skills, and user motivation; differentiation of level of use is presented in three levels:…

This collection contains lessons in 4 subjects related to learning: (1) visual perception; (2) learning; (3) cognitive growth; and (4) moral development. Activities dominate each lesson and students are expected to do some experimentation outside the classroom. Each of the 20 lessons presents: (1) a synopsis; (2) objectives; (3) necessary…

Two influential theories of intellectual development are reviewed and analyzed: the psychometric framework, based on the factorial composition of intelligence, and the Piagetian model, based on assimilation and accomodation through four stages of intellectual development. A third concept is the componential theory of intelligence, based on…

About 25 children in each of grades 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 were tested in their ability to solve linear syllogisms, such as: John is taller than Mary. Mary is taller than Pete. Who is tallest--John, Mary, or Pete? Response latencies and error rates decreased across grade levels and sessions. Component latencies also generally decreased with increasing…

The concept of metacognition (as outlined by investigators such as Flavell and Brown) is explicated and extended by drawing on the theoretical ideas developed in Soviet psychology. In this paper 'metacognition' refers to the subject's ability to monitor, integrate and coordinate various aspects of a task. It is proposed that the notion of…

This response mode study attempts to determine whether different response modes are helpful or not in facilitating the thought process in a given problem solving situation. The Luchins Water Jar Test (WJT) used in this study illustrates the phenomena "Einstelling" (mechanization of response) because it does not require any specialized content…

Empirical research is reviewed in the area of cognitive psychology pertaining to models of human memory. Research evidence and theoretical considerations are combined to develop guidelines for future theory development related to the human memory. The following theoretical constructs and variables are discussed: (1) storage versus process…

Four alternative theoretical models of intellectual competence were assessed, using confirmatory factor analysis to account for the correlation patterns derived from Wechsler intelligence tests. It was argued that the difference between the chi-square goodness of fit statistics that are provided when using confirmatory factor analysis gives a…

A schema developed for the teaching of reading involves five factors: learning, language, clues, mediums of communication, and adaptive processes. Learning involves four tasks, taught in the following sequence: comprehension, comparison of semantic shapes, composition of the whole into parts, and concentration. There are four general language…

Undergraduate students using an imagery mnemonic mediating technique involving "keywords" to learn definitions of thirty unfamiliar words performed better on a 1-week delayed comprehension test, on at least half of the definitions, than those who read and copied definitions. Mnemonic mediating strategies worked better than nonmediating strategies…

INCLUDED ARE MATERIALS FOR USE IN TEACHING AND EVALUATING 11 SELECTED CONCEPTS RELATED TO THE BIOLOGICAL CELL IN GRADES 2 TO 6. THE CONCEPTS WERE SELECTED AND THEIR ORDER DETERMINED THROUGH AN ANALYSIS OF ELEMENTARY TEXTBOOK SERIES, HIGH SCHOOL AND COLLEGE BIOLOGY TEXTS, CYTOLOGY TEXTS, AND INFORMATION GATHERED THROUGH A PILOT STUDY. THE MATERIALS…

Benjamin Bloom's "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives" can be used effectively to develop and evaluate a sequential secondary-school curriculum in literature, regardless of the school's content emphasis or curricular philosophy. The two available volumes of the "Taxonomy"--dealing with the cognitive domain of knowledge, skills,…

Research on learning and conditioning suggests that verbal response modification does not occur in the absence of the subject's ability to define verbally (1) the response-reinforcement relationships and (2) his intention to change his behavior in the direction of reinforcement. This seems to be true for operant conditioning of verbal behavior,…

A study was designed to determine if the results of a previous investigation could be duplicated, and if so, whether the observed effect was independent of content. The results of the earlier study had indicated that shifting from one form or "code" of expression to another inhibits a student's ability to express a concept explaining a physical…