This study was designed to simulate some aspects of classroom verbal interaction and to investigate their cognitive effects on students, using cognitive theory as the theoretical rationale. Subject-determined verbalization of correct cues was crossed with external sources of verbalized correct cues in a multivariable design in which sex was treated as an organismic independent variable. The subjects consisted of 159 fourth-grade students who had had two years of the Science Curriculum Improvement Studies (SCIS) program. Individualized sessions based on a protocol standardized in a pilot study were held with each subject. A 2 x 3 x 2 factorial design was utilized. The criterion tasks involved the multiple ordering of blocks arranged in a 4 x 4 matrix array. The blocks varied four degrees on each of three properties--height, diameter and shades of a single color (blue). A three-way ANOVA, using a .05 significance level, was used for analyses. Results indicated that while subject-determined verbalization of correct cues had no significant effect on performance, the effect of teacher-supplied correct cues was significant for the female subjects. It was suggested that girls should be encouraged to be less teacher-dependent in gathering and organizing information from materials and phenomena. (Author/EB)