This paper presents a model of cognitive development across the life span that is designed to integrate the diverse empirical evidence in the area of cognitive development in childhood and adulthood. Relevant research is reviewed in the relationships between performance and age, and the effects of training on performance. A model is then proposed…

Factors that may affect success in high school or introductory college physics typically include cognitive structure such as formation of problem-solving schemata, visual-spatial abilities, induced cognitive structures of sex roles, and such external factors as teaching style and curriculum. All are important in passing a physics course as…

The classroom environment elicits social comparison behavior in which a student uses peers' performance as a gauge for his own self-assessment. Social comparison as it relates to ability is a four phase sequential process. In phase one, stimulation of social comparison is elicited through developmentally-determined cognitive capacities and motives…