The effect of set (to integrate or differentiate), characterization and conceptual structure on comprehension of a social situation was studied with a sample of 83 psychology students. Subjects judged groups, read stories and completed comprehension tests. Evidence provides support for the assumption that impressions affect one's comprehension of…

Investigated in two experiments involving 15- and 16-year-old mentally retarded students was knowledge of conceptual categories as reflected by semantic priming effects. (Author/IM)

In this study of concept acquisition, the variables were inductive and deductive modes of instruction and exposure time to examples. The deductive method produced significantly higher posttest scores than the inductive. Longer exposure times were more effective than shorter times. There were no interactions between time and mode. (Author/BD)

Discusses a workshop designed to explore and develop concepts and practices in the use of effective peer observation for professional development. Notes that seminar leaders established micro-goals, e.g., developing a personal and professional understanding of peer observation, examining affective and power issues, and learning objective…

Used a Partially Ordered Scaling of Items method to analyze block construction play in a replication of Innes and King-Shaw's 1985 study. Found several developmental pathways for block play, illustrating the web-like nature of conceptual development. Results suggest a contextual developmental approach to better acknowledge individual diversity in…

Encourages educators to teach with concepts so that students may then proceed individually to link important information into a larger context. The lessons are particularly applicable to environmental education and are centered around the concept of change. The activities include information about geologic, climatic, and cultural change. (AIM)

Explains the use of a card lab to demonstrate how a population bottleneck impacts genetic diversity and the survival of a population. Uses a standard deck of playing cards to show how age structure can magnify bottleneck effects. (DDR)

Presents an analysis of technology education and its relevance to lateral thinking. Discusses prospects for utilizing technology education as a platform and a contextual domain for nurturing lateral thinking. Argues that technology education is an appropriate environment for developing complementary incorporation of vertical and lateral thinking.…

Explores children's understandings of insect life cycles through pre- and postinstructional interviews, analysis of children's journal entries, and talk that occurred throughout the instructional unit. Contains 38 references. (DDR)

Supports teachers in resolving problems of teaching long division. Discusses an approach focusing first on modeling the partition process with base-10 blocks and having students come to a conceptual understanding of the standard long division algorithm. Evaluation of the approach concluded that it helped students conquer the division concept. (ASK)

Describes common misconceptions with decimals and suggests activities that can strengthen connections between decimal concepts and fractions, place value, and physical models, such as the number line. Encourages reasoning, communicating, and problem solving. (TO)

Explores the current images that students have of scientists, student perceptions of science study in school, and student awareness of their use of science outside of school. Fifth grade students (N=117) were the subjects of this study that asked students to sketch scientists and school science. (DDR)

Results of 3 sentence-interpretation experiments involving 180 preschoolers suggest that very little explicit syntactic knowledge is needed to give children some structural clues to verb meaning. Sentence structure appears to have a meaning of its own that can be applied by analogy to the child's conceptual representation. (SLD)

A review of the literature examines definitional issues in child abuse. The review is organized into sections on theory and ideology, historical broadening of concept, comparative studies, dimensions of definitions, operational definitions, and breadth of systems. The importance of definitional issues in construction of a unifying framework for…

Drawing on the notion of the domain-specificity of recognition, reviews evidence on the effect of language in classification of and reasoning about categories from different domains. Looks at anthropological infant classification, and preschool categorization literature. Suggests the causal nature and indicative power of animal categories seem to…