Reports on two studies on the dynamic relationships among parts of a thought system. The first study examines the effects of changes in the desirability or likelihood of a core event on thoughts about antecedents and consequences; the second examines the effects of changes in the antecedents and consequences on the core thought. (FMW)

Ten individuals in the Educational Technology Program at the University of Northern Colorado served as subjects for this study, which was designed to: (1) identify cognitive networks of concepts within components of a system design model for expert and novice instructional developers, and (2) determine cognitive networks of concepts between…

This paper describes prominent cognitive psychology techniques and considers the extent to which these techniques are being used in instructional research studies reported in publications of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT). Four techniques from cognitive psychology are described: secondary task techniques,…

This study compared the effects of an elaborated unit of instruction and a hierarchical unit on students' online processing activities, efficiency of encoding new information, and facility in solving problems. Participants were six education graduate students rated as novices on the to-be-learned content--a unit on the principles of photography.…

This paper discusses four areas in the psychology literature that have important implications for the instructional design of microcomputer-based simulations. The first one examined is cognitive structures, and the following suggestions for instructional design are offered: simulations should be appropriate for students' level of understanding;…

Critical review of previous techniques for the measurement of an individual's self-concept (SC) is a necessary prelude to the development of more adequate methodologies. This paper focuses on recent methodological innovations in the study of the self, namely, those derived from cognitive social psychology. A view of the self as a cognitive…

This paper explores a wide range of issues associated with research on mental models. Based on a functional perspective, mental models are defined as the mechanisms whereby humans generate descriptions of system purpose and form, explanations of system functioning and observed system states, and predictions of future system states. Specifically,…

This test of Marshall McLuhan's claim that increased exposure to television will develop a perception of the world as a "global village" used estimation of cognitive distance as an operational definition of the global village concept. The first phase of the study tested the hypothesis that "heavy" television viewers' estimates…

Two studies investigated the differential effects of organizational cuing and strategy training on learning disabled (LD) adolescents, a group which, it has been suggested, is particularly insensitive to the effects of organizational cues. Participants for the first study included 37 LD and 50 nonhandicapped high school students who were randomly…

Trends in emphases in the study of clinical reasoning are examined, with attention to three major branches of research: problem-solving, knowledge engineering, and propositional analysis. There has been a general progression from a focus on the generic form of clinical reasoning to an emphasis on medical content that supports the reasoning…