Examined the nature of perceptual classification in children and young adults. Found that most children attend selectively to one stimulus dimension when making perceptual classification judgments. Suggests that this developmental trend does not appear to be a holistic-to-analytic shift but rather a trend toward greater consistency in following a…

Tested on preschoolers a goal-confidence model for older children that predicts achievement behavior during failure. Found that individual differences in achievement goals emerge very early. Children appeared to have developed a mechanism for selecting learning opportunities prior to formal school experience. (AA)

Nursing students (n=203) were provided with conventional study-skill guidelines, tutoring, and advisement assistance. An experimental group was also provided homework prescriptions based on their identified learning-style preferences. Students in experimental group achieved higher science grades; grade point averages, curiosity about science…

Seventy-seven children (ages 5-13) with mild to moderate mental retardation were presented with addition problems. The patterns of strategies used were found to be similar to those used by intellectually normal children, though counting-on and memory strategies were used by subjects with greater frequency. Strategies became more sophisticated with…

In a study of cultural differences and information dissemination, a group of unsuccessful Ethiopian English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) university students in Israel were compared with a typical Israeli EFL group. Results show that unsuccessful learners use similar strategies for reading comprehension, etc., but their use is "mechanical." (18…

A discussion of gender differences in human development and language use is followed by reports of research on styles and strategies in learning a second or foreign language. Instructional implications for second-language classrooms are highlighted. (Contains 100 references.) (Author/LB)

This study looked at current reading strategies used by Spanish learners in fourth- and fifth-semester college Spanish. Students ranked strategies they found most useful. No single strategy was chosen by an overwhelming majority of students; however, a mean ranking revealed that instruction in skimming and word guessing proved most useful to…

Hypnotic language can increase the transference of learning from an adventure activity to a therapeutic goal by absorbing the client in the experience, ratifying that absorption, and eliciting the client's resources to address problematic situations. Provides examples of using this approach in adventure therapy to enhance a client's experience and…

This article describes a highly structured approach for improving the revising skills of students with learning disabilities that combines peer response, strategy instruction, and word processing. The strategy guides students in both the social and cognitive aspects of response and revision. Two studies demonstrating the effectiveness of the…

This article describes the Reading Strategies Program, which teaches decoding skills to primary-level students with learning disabilities with a methodology intended to teach children to apply the skills to literature. Cognitive strategies also are used to apply comprehension skills to the material and to write about the material read. (JDD)

Describes a study designed to determine whether the Biology Critical Thinking (BCT) project (which incorporates activities for developing specific critical thinking skills into the biology curriculum) enhances critical thinking skills and how it affects students' biological knowledge and classroom learning environment. Results indicate that BCT…

Focuses on beginner foreign-language classes at the university level with the goal of identifying the types of learners who participate in "languages for all" programs and how their needs can best be addressed during the first weeks of the course. Students' initial learning needs to be compensated by the development of various kinds of awareness…

Interpretive techniques for encouraging participants to experience a deeper level of environmental growth during outdoor activities include group discussions, creative writing, artistic expression, visualization, sensitization, group activities introducing participants to various aspects of the environment, reflective thinking, the use of…

A training study involving 146 elementary school teachers found that training that corresponded with teachers' beliefs was more likely to enhance learning. However, providing the trainer with diagnostic information was not an effective strategy for achieving greater congruence between teachers' beliefs and instruction. (SLD)

Describes the self-reported strategies of 30 adults who were independent language learners for a period of 6 months and kept diaries of their language learning experiences. High achievers showed significantly more instances of communication-making and context-making activities, treating language as a medium of communication rather than as a…