Two content-independent learning strategies were evaluated to determine their effectiveness in facilitating learning on two types of information-processing tasks, spatial learning and concept learning. The network strategy used imagery with a peg-mnemonic and a hierarchical retrieval system, while the rote strategy elicited a stimulus-response…

The British Ability Scales (BAS), published in 1979 (after a national standardization on a representative sample of British children), were revised and republished in January 1983. The BAS is an individually administered cognitive test battery for children aged between 3 and 17 years. It has considerable breadth of test content and provides a…

Two experiments were conducted to characterize the system of beliefs that make up the naive impetus theory of motion and to determine what effects physics instruction has on students' conceptions of motion. Thirteen college students were asked to solve several quantitative problems and were interviewed about their answers in the first experiment.…

The structure of inquiry in art is a set of behavioral stages, comparable with creative process stages, in which persons think in and about the visual mode of perception. The stages include behaviors identified by Dewey as factors or phases of reflective thought and as stages in the pattern of inquiry. The stages also show relatedness to problem…

Intended to help elementary school children integrate the skills of writing and reading at an early age, this booklet discusses research concerning the cognitive processes and acquisition of reading and writing skills, and presents teaching methods and resources to help young children make the connection. The first half of the booklet explores…

The full power of drama as both a teaching and learning medium can be realized only when the inner world of meaning is harnessed to the outer world of expressive action. The teacher has available a number of techniques that can involve the students in the vital interaction of both frames. To involve the students in the expressive frame, the…

Students (N=49) enrolled in a physics course for elementary teachers were evaluated for their abilities to use: (1) combinatorial logic; (2) separation and control of variables; (3) proportional reasoning; and (4) reciprocal implications. Performance of four Piagetian tasks during interviews was treated as a measure of the degree to which students…

Once speech educators turn their attention to the "ideational" function of oral language--that portion pertaining to thinking--rather than the relational function, they will see that speech can and should be incorporated into every discipline. The psychologist Lev S. Vygotsky envisions the ways in which humans use speech to reorder their…

Limitations of the retrieval strategy dimension of Siegler's (1982, 1984) distributions-of-associations model of young children's estimation of sums are delineated, an alternative model is described, and findings of two studies designed to test key assumptions of the models are reported. In Study 1, kindergarten children with normal IQ and no…

A sample of 217 students (from grades 4 to 8) who were enrolled in an elementary school science-oriented gifted and talented program were compared to 91 mainstreamed subjects in grades 7 through 10. Assessement instruments included: a battery of Piagetian measures designed to assess combinatorial reasoning, probabilistic reasoning, and the ability…

This booklet examines the current instructional uses of computers, their demands on teachers and teacher trainers, and the measures required to further promote their use. Five principal educational computer uses are addressed: (1) learning from computers in drill and practice and tutorial programs; (2) learning with computers using simulations and…

A study used an information-processing model to examine the thoughts of student teachers during the act of teaching. A review of related research on teacher information-processing included studies by Marland (1977), McNair and Joyce (1978), and Morine and Vallance (1975). The study used the method and categories of concerns of McNair and Joyce…

A general framework is outlined for describing the relationship of cognition to brain systems. The model provides for empirical investigations at many levels--computational, chronometric, spatial imaging, and cellular--and argues for the logical interrelationship of these areas of investigation. It is applied to selective visual-spatial attention…

Information processing and memorial processes that have been identified by contemporary research as important factors in human learning and cognitive activity are shown to provide a basis for explaining and predicting transfer of training effects. Four major factors are discussed in separate sections: the relationship between retrieval cues and…