"A new sort of concept attainment or decoding-encoding experimental paradigm based on the model is developed and an experiment on 5-, 7-, and 9-year-olds is reported. (Author)

To discover how misconceptions occur and how teachers deal with them when they occur, fifth-grade students (N=229) and teachers (N=14) were observed during units on light and photosynthesis. Results suggest that curriculum developers consider childrens' misunderstandings of phenomena and design materials explicitly contrasting these…

Presents an instructional strategy based on the thesis that science concept learning involves cognitive accommodation of an initially held framework. The three stages of the strategy--exposing alternative frameworks, creating conceptual conflict, and encouraging cognitive accommodation--are illustrated in two lessons on the particle model of…

Focusing on student misconceptions in science, indicates that student enter classes with their own conceptual structure for organizing/understanding the world and that after instruction the conceptual understanding of a topic remains unchanged. Techniques related to teaching concepts are discussed, including identification of students' initial…

Evaluates the effect of question type (rote, conceptual) and adjunct question response mode (multiple choice, short answer) on rote and conceptual learning outcomes of 98 undergraduate high and low ability readers. Results indicate rote adjunct questions are more helpful to readers and high reading ability students demonstrate better test…

Discusses children's acquisition of non-nominal, abstract words and argues that the use of these words parallels the child's cognitive development in trial-and-error problem solving and in development of insight. (EKN)

Discusses Jean Piaget's notion of equilibrium--the propensity to reduce conceptual conflict--in relation to early childhood education. Presents an instructional model that has the teacher raising children's conceptual conflict through a series of open-ended questions. (FL)

Areas of knowledge having impact upon teacher effectiveness include content knowledge, knowledge of the "human factor," and knowledge of "conceptualizing." An illustration of an instructional problem and how knowledge about conceptualizing is related to the problem is provided. (CJ)

A view of cognitive development emphasizing the formal properties of cognitive structures and processes that remain invariant throughout development is described. Cognitive development is guided by complex sets of constraints, specific sets are tailored for particular cognitive domains, and constraints limit the class of naturally learnable…

Provides clarification of the Piagetian theory of the development of conservation and reviews the state of knowledge regarding the theory. It is concluded that reasonable evidence exists suggesting that conservation by identity precedes and induces the emergence of conservation by inversion and compensation. (Author/DB)

Describes the development of cognitive structure in adolescence as establishing isomorphism between subject and environment. Identifies two dimensions of stages in the development of individuals'"work structure," i.e., the network of relations existing between the individual and his work.