Punctuation serves as a system of visual markers that contradict previously generated false grammatical expectations. Word order conditions define the redundant or critical aspect of punctuation cues to visual display. Parsing (grouping) sentences into meaningful phrases and clauses aids language comprehension, and children who have reading…

This study explores the validity of a construct of cognitive spirituality as measured by a recent measure, the "Spirituality Index of Well-Being," in a sample of Catholic high school students. Spirituality on this scale is conceptualized as a composite of life scheme (having meaning in one's life) and generalized self-efficacy. Construct-based…

This paper reports on an investigation of children's ability to accept contrary-to-fact premises as though they were factual and to reason accordingly. A variety of questions requiring this skill were presented in semi-structured interview form to 10 to 12 subjects from each of six age groups ranging from 5 to 9 years, and to a control group of…

This paper presents a developmental study of the problem solving strategies of reflective and impulsive children. Subjects for the study were 30 nine-year-olds, 39 eleven-year-olds, and 23 thirteen-year-olds who had been classified as reflective or impulsive at ages 7, 9, and 11 and who had been followed longitudinally over a three year period.…

Witkin's Embedded Figures Test (EFT) was used to measure the changes with age in field dependence and problem-solving ability. Qualitative data concerning problem-solving strategies and quantitative data were collected. EFT was administered to 12 females in each of the following decades: 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. All subjects were moderately…

This exploratory study was conducted to interpret age and individual differences in 48 kindergarteners' and second graders' performance on a referential communication task in light of the Pascual-Leone Theory of Constructive Operations, a neo-Piagetian theory of cognitive development. Stimulus materials were black and white photographs of dogs,…

An instructional system that is both efficient and effective should present information so that it is easily processed by learners and so that the cognitive structures resulting from instruction correspond to the structure of the content to be learned. This paper presents a discussion of methods for describing content structure and cognitive…

Accent on Developing Abstract Processes of Thought (ADAPT) is a program designed to promote critical thinking among college students. Based on the theoretical work of Jean Piaget, it attempts to help University of Nebraska freshmen confront problems and follow them through to logical solutions. In its first year, the program's goals were to…

A distinction can be made between the term "creativity" and creative thinking skills. Creativity typically refers to a talent for original and masterful production in the arts and sciences, and there is scant evidence that teachers have any influence on creativity of this kind. Creative thinking refers to a group of six thinking skills that if…

The primary goal of early reading instruction, according to this paper, should be to teach children to comprehend written discourse in a manner similar to that for oral discourse because both types of discourse require decoding ability--graphic or acoustic. The paper asserts that to simply design reading instruction to achieve the subgoal of…

A framework for a comprehensive theory of reading is presented in this paper. The framework consists of perceptual, semantic, and control systems. The perceptual and semantic spaces of the theory should not be confused with the terms "decoding" and "comprehension"; decoding and comprehension refer to ways in which those spaces…

In order to provide an estimate of encoding within the active mode and a comparison between three modes of representation (enactive, imagery, and verbal), 36 second grade children from the high socioeconomic community of Beverly Hills, California, were presented with object pairs under one of three conditions (haptic-object versus visual-object…

Ninety-two subjects solved a series of problems without enough time to finish and worked at a pace and in an order determined by the experimenter (Experimenter- Paced) or at their own pace and order under self-administered time deadlines (Self-Paced). Self-pacing resulted in superior performance on rote and poorer performance on cognitive problems…

This document examines the differences of cognitive styles and how they pertain to student performance and effective teaching. Persons identified as "field-dependent" people are particularly attuned and differentially attend to the social dimensions of their environment. Due to this orientation, these persons appear to be more skillful at learning…

This study compared the performance of 59 black students and 32 white students on tasks requiring formal operations. The study compared groups from different racial backgrounds and similar socioeconomic environments. It was assumed that if socioeconomic difference was a more weighty experience factor than was racial difference, then differences in…