Background: Shayer, Ginsburg, and Coe (2007) showed that children leaving primary school in Y6 entered secondary school with much lower levels of understanding of the physical conservations than in 1976. It seemed desirable to investigate cognitive development in the first three years of secondary education. Aims: By using two Piagetian tests of…

Examined college students' logical reasoning ability using the Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT) as a major predictor of science acheivement. Reports an improvement on each of the subscale scores, and a significant correlation with four science subjects on both pre- and post-TOLT scores. (YP)

Demonstrates that 11-year-old children's scientific thinking in formal operational terms can be significantly developed through training in the cognitive style of field independence determined by the Group Embedded Figures Test. Suggests students could perform formal operationally if they had the skill of identifying the variables to be…

The study of 281 adolescents found no significant differences in creativity subvariables between the developmental stages of concrete and formal operations. Significant relationships were found between age and creativity. Figural flexibility, originality, and elaboration decreased as age increased from 13 to 16 years. (Author/JDD)

This paper is an attempt to clarify the ambiguity surrounding the issue of adult creativeness. The significance and the limitations of the Genetic Epistemological paradigm in the conceptualization of adult inventiveness are discussed. A framework is suggested that provides an alternative for the study of adult creativeness from a…

An Inventory of Piaget's Developmental Tasks was used to assess attainment of five Piagetian tasks of elementary and secondary-level teacher candidates and of general population college students. Results were compared and are discussed. Recommendations to promote cognitive maturity are presented. (Author/MT)

Proposes a theoretical model of cognitive development and applies this model to the secondary analysis of two large-scale studies which focus on the acquisition of formal operational schemata by adolescents in the United States and Israel. Results support the "unity" hypothesis of cognitive development that the various schemata of formal…

The constructivist hypothesis that the acquisition of domain-specific conceptual knowledge (declarative) requires the use of general procedural knowledge was tested. Students (n=314) were classified as reflective, transitional, or intuitive thinkers and presented with four concept-acquisition tasks. Skill in hypothetico-deductive reasoning…

College students were assigned to either dyadic or individual problem-solving conditions and were given a series of formal operational tasks. Dyadic subjects solved more problems during the interaction phase than did individual subjects. Among dyadic subjects, interactions were associated with problem solving and pre-to-posttest gain scores. (BC)

Administered five Piagetian tests to 180 adolescents for comparison to similar samples from 1967 and 1972. Found that today's adolescents exhibited higher levels of cognitive development than did previous cohorts. Gain varied across tasks, being very large for combinatory thought but mixed for conservation. This acceleration of cognitive…

This paper discusses the utility of a general systems theory paradigm for psychology. The paradigm can be used for conceptualizing such complex phenomena as change over time in living systems, person-society interactions, and the epistemology of multiply determined changes. Consideration is also given to applications of the approach to…

Investigated was the relation between student ability to translate sentences into equations, equations into sentences, and student performance in formal operational reasoning, proportional reasoning, and introductory-level chemistry. Results indicate that students who lack formal operational skills may experience problems in the translation of…

Presented is a study in which students' intellectual reasoning development was evaluated following instruction that emphasized formal operations in a traditional lecture format. Results indicated that formal-operational students had significantly more success in the three reasoning areas than transitional students and transitional students had…

Studied children's transitive inference where representation of premises provided contradictory information depending on position of two elements in a A, B, C series. Eight-year olds did significantly better on the more complex problems than did six-year olds, suggesting the presence of a developmental sequence of algorithms that enable children…

Assessed was the level of thinking of 140 students who had been placed in developmental algebra as entering college freshmen. Scores on the Group Assessment of Logical Thinking, Scholastic Aptitude Tests, college placement tests; high school grade point average, and developmental algebra final grade were analyzed. Group characteristics are…