This research pioneered the investigation of the role of doctoral students' thinking styles in their program satisfaction and perceived intellectual competence. Participants were 285 STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) students in Hong Kong. Results showed that students' thinking styles as measured by the Thinking Styles…

By investigating undergraduates' epistemological orientations and processes in academic and personal contexts, this study examined whether and how epistemological development in one context is related to development in another context. The focus of this particular study was on tension regarding the contextuality of epistemological development. The…

Summarizes womens' five basic ways of knowing: silence; received knowledge; subjective knowledge; procedural knowledge; and connected knowledge. Traces the change and growth of one writer as she moved through the five stages of intellectual development. (RS)

It is hypothesized that certain mental structures are related to certain teaching skills. These structures are identified as combinatorial logic, essential to planning lessons, and hypothetical reasoning, an important aid in analyzing lessons. These formal thinking abilities should result in greater improvement during practice and later teaching.…

Examined the intelligence of freshmen and seniors at a metropolitan university to determine if differences exist with regard to multiple intelligence domains, specific skills, and intellectual styles, and between gender, ethnicity, and age group. Found some support for differences between freshmen and seniors in these areas. (EV)

Examined college students' motivational orientations toward learning and views concerning purpose of education in relation to various intellectual styles. Task orientation was positively associated with Tolerance for Ambiguity, Thoughtfulness, and Open-Mindedness. Ego orientation was negatively associated with Tolerance for Ambiguity,…

The relationship between conceptual complexity and stimulus saliency was explored in a 3 x 4 factorial design using 144 undergraduates. Levels of complexity were represented by varying the ratio of relevant-to-irrelevant dimensions (1:3, 2:2, and 3:1). The saliency factor varied according to the discriminability between each attribute within…

Among findings were that almost twice as many Japanese students preferred the intuitive approach to solving problems, and 27 percent of Japanese students regarded themselves as more intellectual than creative compared to 49 percent of American students studied. Preference by the Japanese students for verbal modes of learning as compared to their…

Describes an eight-month study conducted in five day care centers for children of impoverished families, using Gardner's theory of Multiple Intelligences as a framework to train the day care providers and to work with preschool children. Suggests that Gardner's framework is productive for all children, and is particularly applicable to children…

Assessed Kolb learning styles and neo-Piagetian development levels of students who then completed a lecture/lab course with either inquiry or expository instructional methods. The predicted interaction between Kolb's thinking/feeling learning dimension and instructional method was not found, while thinking/feeling dimension and developmental level…

Many educators believe that, regardless of innate abilities and acquired skills, students at different educational levels do not think in the same way. To account for these differences, 119 female students representing four educational levels (high school seniors to graduate students) completed the Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal Form A…

This study used survey data to identify college students' dominant learning stages, basing it on Marcia Baxter Magolda's (1992) Epistemological Reflection Model. A total of 699 alumni of a midwestern community college who had completed at least 30 credit hours transferable to baccalaureate degrees elsewhere completed a survey that incorporated…

An instructional system that is both efficient and effective should present information so that it is easily processed by learners and so that the cognitive structures resulting from instruction correspond to the structure of the content to be learned. This paper presents a discussion of methods for describing content structure and cognitive…

Analyzed WISC-R profiles of 42 conduct problem children to generate hypotheses concerning the children's intellectual strengths and weaknesses. Used a variety of subtest groupings to interpret ability patterns. Findings revealed relative strengths in perceptual organization skills, and weaknesses in skills that involve sequencing, memory, and…

Reviews the research methods, design, and main findings of the Austin-Mexico City cross-cultural study of personality and intellectual development using an overlapping longitudinal design. A span of 12 years of development was extrapolated from six years of repeated testing with children ages 6, 9, and 12 years. (SS)