An alternative is suggested to conventional and propositional ways of thinking about curriculum matters. Curriculum theory is conventionally presented as statements of propositional knowledge even though the significance of tacit, non-propositional knowledge has been recognized in philosophy. It is suggested that attention be paid to how teachers…

The processes of photosynthesis and respiration are basic to the understanding of many other aspects and functions of biological systems. Because of their curricular significance, these processes served as the focal point in an investigation of student conceptions and instructional effectiveness. In this study, students in a college nonscience…

Two studies were performed to determine the process used by young children to figure out the meaning of a new word. It was hypothesized that the children would use one of two strategies: (1) ignore the word and wait for more information, or learn only what is unambiguous about it, or (2) make a reasonable but uncertain guess, quickly setting up…

A study of Korean children's interpretation of the reflexive pronoun "caki" when it precedes a third person noun phrase, that is, in backward anaphora, had as subjects 4- to 11-year-old children living in Korea. Test sentences designed on the basis of two important syntactic aspects in Korean reflexive anaphora--relational hierarchy and…

A study of the time- and aspect-marking of 24-month-old native Mandarin-speaking children analyzed their language during free play, and matched fifty utterance samples containing active predicates with all utterances using the perfective suffix "-le." It was found that the children mentioned the future, particularly their immediate intentions,…

It is now almost universally acknowledged that science education must be rejuvenated to serve the needs of American society. An emerging science of science education based on recent advances in psychological research could make this rejuvenation dramatic. Four aspects of psychological research relevant to science curriculum design are discussed:…

Because teachers are asking for specific suggestions to help students apply comprehension skills and read content material, a mechanism that assists students in acquiring and applying specific comprehension skills as they read content texts is being investigated. The mechanism is called marginal gloss because learning activities are placed in the…

A study examined whether there were any differences in the concepts about print, writing vocabulary, and prereading performance of selected kindergarten children who were provided with (1) independent writing time and exposure to a writing model in the school environment, (2) independent writing time without the writing role model, and (3) neither…

Abstracts of two symposium papers are provided, giving: (1) the results of a study of the effect of child-rearing practices on the cognitive development of children under 5 years of age in Jakarta; and (2) the results of an investigation of West German preschool children's preferences and abilities in relation to conceptual styles. Comparing 100…

Clinical interviews were conducted with 25 seventh- and eighth-grade students to determine: (1) the extent to which they could produce correct graphical representations of familiar situations; (2) to what extent they could infer relationships from graphs; (3) what are the most commonly held graphing misconceptions and how stable they are; and (4)…

Since a discourse community may have its membership assigned both on the basis of speech or of writing, it follows that the concept of discourse community needs to be both medium-neutral and unconstrained by space and time. The defining characteristics of a discourse community might be (1) communality of interest, (2) mechanisms for…

This paper presents a critique of current research on functional understanding of thinking and teaching. Three trends in cognitive research are examined. The "reification of mind" (the assumption that "mind" is an entity just as is body) is examined as a research trend that accepts knowledge as existing independent of the biographies, the…

The focus of this document is on students' understanding of symbolization processes in algebra, and specifically their understanding of semantically laden letters. In the first four sections, four inappropriate ways in which many college students use semantically laden letters are described. Evidence from clinical interview protocols demonstrate…

Four questions are posed: (1) Is knowledge utilization a rhetorical evocation? (2) Is the conjunction of knowledge with utility part of a cultural system of common sense? (3) Is utility a normative or a descriptive concept? and (4) How does the concept of knowledge utilization figure in the specialized discourse of social scientists? This paper…

Research examined the relation of early childhood practitioners' concepts of the purpose and meaning of caregiving to their stage of career development. Research questions included: (1) What are the notions of caregiving held by practitioners in direct and indirect work? (2) Do these concepts of caregiving expand as the practitioners move from…