Johnson and Puplampu recently proposed the "ecological techno-subsystem", a refinement to Bronfenbrenner's theoretical organization of environmental influences on child development. The ecological techno-subsystem includes child interaction with both living (e.g., peers) and nonliving (e.g., hardware) elements of communication,…

Trickster tales, with their teachings on how to behave in the world, are a powerful means for transmitting social knowledge and cultural mores to children. In this study we compared two approaches to teaching fourth-grade students to write trickster tales. Although both instructional methods incorporated aspects of the writing process approach,…

The development of probability judgment is explained in terms of working memory, composed of four types of storage operations and three types of processing operations. Age changes in probability judgment were related to changes in frequency retrieval, which stem from changes in constraints on work-space capacity. (Author/RD)

Describes Developmental Counseling and Therapy (DCT) as model of helping based on Piagetian and constructivist concepts. Notes that client functioning is understood in terms of four levels of cognitive developmental functioning which parallel levels of cognitive development described by Piaget. Describes starting with client's predominant…

Proposes the cognitive developmental paradigm for developing and teaching career development courses in secondary schools. Proposes the major Piagetian constructs of interaction, equilibration, assimilation, and accommodation as a means of intervening in both the structure and function of the career thinking of adolescents. (Author)

Assessed the authenticity of conservation attainment through an observational learning paradigm. First grade children (N=60) were exposed to either a peer or adult model who was either present or absent during a series of tasks. No correlation was found between social influence and observational acquisition of conservation. (Author/JAC)

Raven's Progressive Matrices test items were analyzed for M demand (Pascual-Leone's developmental construct). Data on second- and third-grade subjects were analyzed for extent of absolute agreement of Raven and Figural Intersection Test (FIT) scores. Raw scores on the Raven could be deduced on the basis of FIT performance. (Author/RD)

This study describes the use of content analysis to develop a framework for analysing children's animated television programs (in this case, "Bob the Builder") and as such represents the initial stage of a larger project. Results indicate this popular TV series for preschoolers presents contradictory social messages about the roles of…

A general theory of how children learn conservation concepts is presented. The acquisition process is described at an abstract level in terms of a rule-sampling system, implying a three-state Markov model with identifiable parameters. Three experiments testing the model's quantitative predictions about conservation learning experiments are…

Language awareness, integral to language education in Europe, now influences Canadian second-language programs. The General Language Education (GLE) Syllabus of the "National Core French Study" endeavors to foster language proficiency and tolerance of linguistic and cultural diversity and encourages students to develop their own learning…

Describes the programs of the Archaeological Resource Centre (Toronto), the first such center in any public education system. Programs offered are based on a cognitive skills development model, and are designed as experiential learning classes. Explains how basic archaeological skills are linked to the curriculum. (LS)

Presents a stochastic model for distinguishing mental arithmetic errors according to causes of failure. A series of experiments (1) studied questions of goodness of fit and model validity among four and five year olds and (2) used the model to measure the relative contributions of developmental improvements in short-term memory and arithmetical…

Observed English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) writing classes in Canada in order to document what the ESL instructors do when they teach. Findings reveal that the instructors gave more attention to collectively constructing language paradigms and to guiding individual development than other routines, and attracted student's attention in one way or…

Evaluated a social process model describing how aggression and withdrawal lead to negative social self-perception. Subjects were 793 French Canadian elementary school children. Found that withdrawal behavior uniquely predicted social self-perceptions. Both negative peer status and peer victimization successively mediated the impact of social…

Studied diversity in high-level competence with 122 students identified as academically gifted, in grades 6-8. Results, which contradicted linear, single-scale models of intelligence, supported a three-factor solution: linguistic, logical-mathematical, and social. Specialization and generalization developed in tension with each other, yielding…