This report investigates those factors, necessary for, or facilitative of, stimulus organization. Part I considers three experimentally controlled factors: (1) stimuli; (2) responses; and (3) temporal organization of stimuli. The results revealed that temporal specing accounted for different findings. When the intertrial interval (ITI) was present…

The author clarifies, in a memorium address, how he experiences phenomenological ideas and how they apply to therapy and supervision. The phenomenological method called "epokhe" is defined as the "suspension of preconceptions" or "judgments" concerning a series of events, and, as a result, the achievement of greater clarity in experiencing those…

The present study was designed to explore the relationship between the theoretical models of cognitive development proposed by L. S. Vygotsky and J. Piaget. One hundred and four subjects aged four to sixteen years were selected. All subjects were in the average range of intelligence, were in the usual school grade for their age, and had no history…

Reported is a study to determine the feasibility of teaching selected concepts related to the particle nature of matter to students in grades 2-6. The lessons developed for this study did not require a high student reading ability, did not require more than one-half hour of time, included the use of analogous mechanical models whenever possible,…

In an attempt to set up a heuristic model for the study of attitude formation and change, this paper takes into consideration man's cognitive-environmental interfaces and man's capacity to process information. By conceptualizing attitude, the authors anticipate that they will be able to offer a potential for solving attitude-behavior conflict. (DS)

Investigating the effects of marijuana on human psychological functioning, this study differs from previous research in two ways: 1) it is concerned with relatively complex cognitive processes; 2) it has a theoretical rationale. The general hypothesis of the study states that marijuana will impair its user's ability to form and use abstract…

This document describes a project which was designed (1) to develop a program to teach concepts to young children, and (2) to pilot test the program using college students as teachers of Appalachian children. The instructional program was composed of a series of visual discrimination problems in which the child must discriminate the correct from…

When one learns complex material, the important thing appears to be the ability to understand the material. Once understanding occurs, learning and remembering follow automatically. The conventional psychological literature says little about the processes involved in the learning of complex material--material that takes weeks, months, and even…

The unit presented in this teacher's guide is one of two developed for the sixth and final year in the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS) curriculum. The concept of a scientific model is introduced in this unit with activities directed toward increasing student understanding of electric and magnetic phenomena through concrete experience…

This document is divided into three parts. Part I, "Concepts and the Teaching-learning Process," explores ways that would be effective in developing professional competence of extension agents and other adult educators working in the field and those preparing for it. Part II, "Concepts in Educational Psychology," synthesizes the results of an…

A pilot study and two formal studies were conducted with educable mentally handicapped (EMR) children to develop materials and procedures suitable for studying schema learning in EMRs and to demonstrate schema learning in EMRs in the absence of external guidance. The pilot and formal study I were conducted to develop suitable populations of…

The development of the concept of seriation was studied for 415 children, ranging in age from 3 to 9 years. The subjects were required to learn to identify the larger or smaller object in a two stimulus series, the smallest or middle-sized object in a three stimulus series, and the largest or next to the smallest in a four stimulus series. The end…

This study compared the relative effectiveness of teaching selected science concepts associated with the study of atoms and molecules to fourth and sixth grade students, using two contrasting teaching methods: (1) laboratory-theory sequence, and (2) theory-laboratory sequence. The sample of 99 students in one school was taught the science units…

Piaget explains the stage IV error as a failure to assimilate the new place of hiding rather than a forgetting of it. His hypothesis predicts that the likelihood of error should not vary with the length of the delay interval. Nine-month-old infants delayed 0, 1, 3, or 7 seconds before having the opportunity to search. Infants in all conditions,…

The objective of the study was to develop a test of concept formation which would: (1) not be biased by reading difficulty; (2) be sufficiently stimulating to capture the attention of the students; (3) incorporate both aspects of concept formation of discriminative response and conservation; (4) have a spread of item difficulty appropriate for…