This paper reports results of a design experiment regarding young children's concepts of mass measurement. The research built on an earlier study in which a framework of "growth points" in early mathematics learning and a related, task-based, one-to-one interview to assess children's understanding of the measurement of mass…

The authors conducted a qualitative interview-based study to reveal students' misconceptions about state in sequential circuits. This paper documents 16 misconceptions of state, how students' conceptions of state shift and change, and students' methodological weaknesses. These misconceptions can be used to inform and direct instruction. This study…

A diagnostic test of metric measurement skills was administered to 283 summer Vestibule Program students in 1978 at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf. Results of the testing showed that most of the deaf students lacked an understanding of the information needed for metric living. (Author)

Instruction of linear measurement skills to first and second graders is found to be more effective when taught in a manipulative context than in a graphic context. No differences are observed between manipulative and abstract instructional methods. (JMF)

This study attempted to gather empirical evidence to guide educators in their teaching of linear measurement to primary school children. It attempted to answer the question "What modes of instruction are most effective for teaching linear measurement concepts to conservers and nonconservers of length?" (as defined by Jean Piaget), using a…

Part of an Office of Education three-year project on metric education, the position paper is intended to alert and prepare teachers, curriculum developers, and administrators in vocational, technical, and adult education to the change over to the metric system. The five chapters cover issues in metric education, what the metric system is all…

The five chapters in this document, contributed by consultants who served as teacher trainers at the July 1976 Adult Basic Education Institute at Tennessee State University, include articles, materials, opinions, and bibliographies. Topics are metrication in adult education instruction; teaching the Indo-Chinese refugee; preparing controlled…

The purpose of this study was to determine the relative effectiveness of two instructional approaches upon the attitude, achievement, and retention of fourth, fifth, and sixth graders studying a 3-week unit on the metric system. A laboratory approach, in which students measured three-dimensional objects with tools scaled in metric units, was…

This practicum was designed and implemented to instruct the staff of two elementary schools in the basic content of the metric system and to demonstrate some teaching strategies for instructing elementary students in metrics. A series of twenty after-school workshops was run on a weekly basis. A model was developed to aid other elementary schools…

This study examined learner-control strategies for selecting problem context and level of instructional support on a computer-based mathematics unit on the metric system. Subjects were 240 sixth grade students assigned to 15 treatments. Performance was lowest under learner-control instructional support conditions even though subjects indicated…

It is essential in communicative situations for teachers and students to have comparable percepts. A paucity of information is available on the percepts held by children regarding quantities and intervals of distance, height, weight, time, temperature and volume or on improvement (if any) that occurs as children mature. Teachers cannot be…