The goals for this social studies curriculum are the development of essential concepts, skills, and content that have been identified for the social studies program. The curriculum was designed to meet student needs and interests, to reflect increasing knowledge about child development and learning, and to give attention to the learning…

Third of a four-part series, this article presents an instructional plan for teaching the place value notation concept, base ten, to preschool and elementary school children. After a brief review of the place value notation concept, contents describe an integrated and progressive series of four game-like activities which are fundamentally overt…

The purpose of this study was to determine whether an electronic geoboard, a computer-software program, could be used to assess youngsters' ability to discover facts and relationships in an unlabled and ambiguous situation. Subjects--108 children, ages 6 to 12--were enrolled in grades 1 to 6 in Norwood, New York. The electronic geoboard served as…

Employing a new procedure for measuring peer concepts, this study investigated the development of differentiation and accuracy of children's concepts of their peers' attributes. Subjects, 18 second-graders, 23 fourth-graders, and 18 sixth-graders, were asked to rate characteristics of their peers in mathematics, athletics (running), and in two…

The Goldstein-Scheerer Tests of Abstract and Concrete Thinking are reviewed. This evaluative summary supplements several reviews in the Mental Measurements Yearbook series. The Goldstein-Scheerer tests are used by clinicians and researchers to distinguish normal individuals (those able to engage in two qualitatively different levels of cognitive…

These training materials are designed to stress the importance of a close relationship between concepts and skills when teaching mathematics to young children, to present material on the important area of problem-solving, and to encourage adults to use a wide range of appropriate techniques in evaluating their work and children's work in…

Two different conceptions of ability are proposed. The first conception of ability is more differentiated and generally employed by adults and older children. Here ability level is defined with reference to the performance of others assuming that optimum effort was employed. High ability means higher than others. The second conception of ability…

Free recall and cued recognition performance were studied in 53 field independent and 55 field dependent undergraduate education majors who were with or without structure at the time of learning and at the time of recall. Results indicated that field dependent learners recalled more of the textual material when provided with structure during both…

This report presents a rationale for development of an international perspective on the role of research in the improvement of science education in particular and education in general. Costa Rica, Trinidad and Tobago, Mexico and the United States are the participating countries. Topics discussed include: (1) goals and directions for science…

This document consists of two parts. Part I outlines the general characteristics of science education research in the Federal Republic of Germany (and other German-speaking countries, such as Austria, the German Democratic Republic, and Switzerland). In addition, comparisons are made between research in these countries and research in other…

This paper presents some initial findings from a multi-year project that is exploring the growth of mathematical understanding in a variety of construction trades training programs. In this paper, we focus on John, an entry-level plumbing trainee. We explore his understandings for multiplication, fractions and units of imperial measure as he…

The Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) Model suggests four successive levels of concept learning: (1) concrete--recognizing an object which has been encountered previously; (2) identity--recognizing a known object when it appears in a different spatial, time, or sensory perspective; (3) classificatory--generalizing that two items are alike…

The nature of the relationship between linguistic expression and thought has been a source of controversy in linguistics and psychology. This relationship should be considered one of mutual influence and subject to change. An example of this interrelationship can be found in the process of alteration and assimilation that Indian Buddhist thought…

The purpose of this book is to help parents and their prekindergarten children toward an awareness of what school is and an expectation of what it can be. Part I provides information on (1) the child's fifth year of development (needs, intelligence, and sensory experience); (2) the nature of kindergarten schooling (including a brief history of…

The Pennsylvania Preschool Inventory (PPI) was developed as a straight-forward and efficient measure of the relative cognitive development of the young child, offering an alternative to more complicated, elaborate assessment instruments. Results of the inventory are potentially relevant to both current and future school success of children between…