This book is a collection of the papers presented at the fifth International Interdisciplinary Conference on Piagetian Theory and the Helping Professions, held at the University of Southern California on January 24, 1975. The conference was sponsored by University Affiliated Program at Childrens Hospital of Los Angeles; 44 papers are included.…

This paper provides an outline of an evaluation schema designed to measure geographic concepts. A concept is summarized as a category of experiences defined by a rule and having a name, criterial attributes, and exemplars. Minimal requirements for such a schema are that it should measure the mastery of the rule, attributes, name, and exemplar…

A curriculum guide for the San Diego Unified School District is designed for secondary teachers interested in implementing a legal education program. Objectives are not only to acquaint, but also to help average students understand legal matters that will concern them for the rest of their lives. Suggested teaching activities encourage student…

This paper studies aspects of the conceptual basis for language acquisition, with a focus on the perceptual-cognitive skills used to assign meanings to words. A first assumption is that the correspondence between adult and child perceptual features allows for early communication. Apparently, in the first year, naming is characterized by…

In the first of these two lessons, students study the concepts of three sides of equal length, three equal angles, plane figure, closed figure, and simple figure by reading descriptions, considering examples and nonexamples, and completing exercises. On the second day they combine these concepts in a definition of equilateral triangle. The…

This study investigated a problem within the theoretical structure of cognitive development proposed by Jean Piaget, and used the concepts of classification and projective spatial relationships to investigate the nature of attainment and sequencing of three corresponding logical and infralogical groupings according to the models proposed by…

To determine the effect of early political instruction, a series of basic political concepts were introduced to primary grade children. Using one class of second and one class of fourth graders as control groups and one class of second and another class of fourth graders as experimental groups, a unit of civic instruction was taught during the…

A comparison of effects of three preschool intervention programs designed to prepare disadvantaged Mexican-American children for school is the subject of this study. The San Antonio Urban Educational Development Center (SAUEDC) preschool program (N=16) uses an instructional program built on four structural components: (1) concept-affect formation,…

In 1964 World Book wanted to be able to say that more than 1,000 maps being made for the encyclopedia were designed to be appropriate and useful for children between the ages of nine and fourteen. However, there was virtually no research on which such a program could be based. This paper briefly reviews research projects in this area started in…

An intensive 2-week recreation management institute plan, with proceedings of 20 sessions, is presented in this 1967 document. The primary goal of the institute was to provide systematic methods for (1) upgrading and improving the recreation knowledge of middle management recreation personnel and (2) developing or refining their recreation…

An experimental version of the one semester high school sociology course, "Inquiry in Sociology," was taught by 222 teachers throughout the United States in the spring of 1969. The purpose of this field test was to learn something about its relative success in rural, small-town, suburban, and central city schools, and with students of…

These collected papers discuss uses and limitations of programed instruction in adult basic education; a national French inservice scheme for preparing teacher educators and training vocational teachers at the secondary school programs; the application of specific behavioral sciences in France by various occupational groups in several forms of…

A conceptual category approach to the study of the comprehension of natural language is presented as an alternative to previous approaches made solely in terms of information gain or specific linguistic variables. Elementary school children between the ages of 6 and 11 years were given a referent identification task to test their comprehension of…

In the last few years, a rhetoric of inquiry has emerged to complement the rhetoric of the finished word. New interest in the "pre-writing" activities--e.g., audience analysis, concept formation, and the discovery of judgments which order and give meaning to experience--has manifested itself both in research into the nature of these activities and…

Some of the assertions made by Chomsky in "Aspects of the Theory of Syntax" are considered. In particular, the notion of a "competence" model in linguistics is criticized. Formal postulates for a conceptually-based linguistic theory are presented. (Author/JD)