This paper focuses specifically on the reasoning skill called proportional reasoning. Areas addressed include: (1) a definition (providing examples of direct and indirect proportional reasoning); (2) the development of proportional reasoning (discussing survey results of students logical reasoning abilities); (3) planning for the future (proposing…

Order Analysis is a multidimensional scaling (MDS) technique for determining order among items. This paper reviews articles by different authors describing various components of ordering theory. A common nomenclature is constructed to link together the various ideas and is applied to a fairly simple set of data. Topics discussed include a more…

A study of the effects of the Instrumental Enrichment cognitive intervention program with 41 severely hearing impaired secondary school students was conducted. Experimental and control groups were compared in regard to general cognitive functioning, problem-solving strategies, reading comprehension, and mathematics. Experimental subjects were…

Papers presented at this conference focus primarily on the development of critical thinking and problem solving skills. Topics related to critical thinking include metacognition, curriculum development, and teaching strategies in foreign languages; teaching critical reading of literature to develop critical thinking skills; use of guided design in…

This workbook was designed as an easy-to-read, slower-paced text for students who have learning, reading, and language problems. As one of five workbooks to aid low achievers in problem solving, it focuses on strategies for solving one step and multistep word problems in mathematics. Students use skills learned in the four previous workbooks in…

Workshops that help students develop leadership are offered twice a year by the Office of Student Activities at the University of Pittsburgh. Soon after the 12 programming committee chairs and the student coordinator are selected in December, they meet with advisory staff in a local hotel for a training workshop, the first session of the…

Written in the form of a workshop transcript for participants to take with them, this booklet is designed to present new ideas, reinforce ideas covered in the workshop, suggest applications of workshop content, and encourage participants to use the applications. The concept of "problem" is defined; key ideas in problem solving are considered;…

An overview is first given of some main theoretical frameworks underlying current European research in mathematical thinking, learning, and teaching. Together with the information-processing and the (neo)-Piagetian approaches, both well known in the United States, two other research paradigms can be distinguished: the action-oriented approach to…

A task was developed to differentiate the reasoning of elementary school students in fifth, sixth, and seventh grades. Subjects completed 16 matrices containing two, three, or four dimensions and varying in the embeddedness of the dimensions. They also solved a formal operational task assessing ability to isolate, exclude, and include variables.…

The effectiveness of environmental simulations in developing students' awareness of environmental issues, whether perception of environmental relationships was affected by the simulations, and whether the use of microcomputers as the medium of instruction affected student attitudes towards computers were investigated in this study. Undergraduates…

This paper provides a brief overview of some of the current thought on teaching problem-solving and decision-making skills and presents selected exercises that have been used successfully in a graduate course in problem-solving and decision-making strategies. In addition to learning theories that are presented in order to help learners understand…

Secondary prevention programs for aggressive children should be based on research about processes which mediate children's expression of aggressive behavior. The relative importance of perceived competence, self-esteem, and social problem solving processes was investigated in 20 aggressive and 18 non-aggressive fourth and fifth grade boys. Teacher…

Adults learning at a distance at Athabasca University (Alberta, Canada) make use of telephone tutors. Concerned over the lack of time and/or effort spent in training tutors, and recognizing that tutors had emerged as an important component of distance delivery at the university, a joint effort went into the development of a training manual that…

Following some years of eclipse by the basics, imparting thinking ability to students is once again emerging as the primary goal of public education. How to teach thinking skills, is, however, subject to question. For example, not only is the domain of the higher order skills broad and imprecisely specified, there is also considerable naivete in…

This paper presents an examination of the construction of logic in multidigit subtraction. Interviews were conducted with 90 grade 2 and grade 3 students to determine whether they understood the logic of borrowing and whether the construction of the logic was related to procedural expertise or corresponding conceptual knowledge. Of 34 students…