Argues that the concept of difficult temperament does not yet have enough empirical basis to justify its use for practical purposes. Suggests that the concept possesses enough construct validity to justify further research, particularly when temperamental differences are seen as a parent's perception rather than solely as a child's characteristic.…

A geometric interpretation of the Fundamental Theorem of Calculus is provided and its use is suggested as enhancing student understanding. (MP)

The golden section is a proportion the aesthetic properties of which have been extolled since antiquity. The data from five experiments in which subjects made dichotomous judgements of acquaintances on bipolar dimensions (e.g. pleasant-unpleasant) were reported. (Editor)

Two predictions based on H. Clark's and E. Clark's hypotheses of the acquisition of word meanings were tested: (1) when learning words which have both spatial and temporal meanings, children will understand the spatial meanings first, and (2) children understand the positive member of an antonym word pair before they understand the negative…

Three studies examined whether and when preschool children are willing to attribute internal and immanent causes to motion. Found that preschool children were more likely to attribute immanent cause to motion in animals than in artifacts and more likely to attribute human cause to motion in artifacts than in animals. (MDM)

Infants (N=24) with history of otitis media and tube placement were tested for categorical responding within a visual familiarization-discrimination model. Findings suggest that even mild hearing loss may adversely affect categorical responding under specific input conditions, which may persist after normal hearing is restored, possibly because…

Ambiguity in the meaning of job satisfaction has caused construct validity problems in research. A series of small-scale studies of teachers suggested a distinction between job fulfillment and job comfort as well as a need for understanding how job satisfaction is interpreted by researchers. (SK)

Reviews recent literature from science education publications and discusses their implications for chemistry education. (DKM)

Claims that people determine whether something is a member of a given artifact kind by inferring that it was successfully created with the intention that it belong to that kind. Discusses function-based and intentional-historical accounts of artifact concepts. Concludes that a rich set of inferential capacities is needed to constitute a theory of…

Explores a workable definition of mathematical structure and a rationale for teaching mathematical structure in the secondary school. Continues with mathematical structure appropriate for secondary mathematics teachers and suggestions for teaching mathematical structure in the secondary school. Contains 11 references. (ASK)

Analyzes National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) items to assess student understanding of spread as well as center, such as mean and median. Discusses implications for teaching statistics in 5th and 6th grade mathematics. (KHR)

Presents ideas and conceptual problems of high school students with regard to the cell, its processes, structure, and relation to functions of multicellular organisms. Shows that students have an analogical mechanism that establishes an isomorphism between the representation of the functioning of multicellular organisms of cell processes.…

Describes a student's unique perspective on the algorithm for finding equations of non-vertical lines given one point and the slope. Indicates that students had a better understanding of what they were doing. (KHR)

Reviews perspectives on student resources for learning with an emphasis on the practical benefits to be gained for instruction. Explains that physics education research has focused almost exclusively on student difficulties and misconceptions. This work is limited in what it can tell about student knowledge and learning. (Author/MM)

Examines the existing relationship between the degree of structural coherence of 10th grade students' (n=155) preconceptions in mechanics and the viability of conceptual change both before and after teaching. Results show that students with the highest level of formal reasoning change their alternative conceptions more easily when they display a…