Several different conceptions of the relationship between learning and development are considered in this article. It is argued that dialectical and ecological developmental orientations might provide a useful basis for synthesizing the contrasting frameworks of the operant, information processing, learning theory, and knowledge acquisition…

This research is part of a series of studies, in which the long term objective is to use computer-assisted instruction (CAI) to teach students how to solve nonroutine problems, i.e., problems in which the problem solvers must generate their own strategies. The subjects were 93 first and third graders who tried to solve a novel reasoning problem on…

The effects of meaningfulness of the stimulus materials and the presence or absence of contextual cues on problem-solving behavior were investigated. Third-graders (N=80) were randomly assigned to one of four conditions and their performance in a series of discrimination problems was observed. Subjects in Conditions I and II responded to stimuli…

Reported is a study of two instructional strategies: (1) the placement of key questions in text materials, and (2) the use of prescriptive feedback to direct students who missed text questions to appropriate remedial work. Learning that resulted from these two techniques was examined relative to achievement, time-on-task, and efficiency.…

This study seeks to determine whether there are syntactic differences in the ways in which field dependent and field independent individuals write, and to determine whether these differences can account for the differences in interpersonal evaluations. One hundred sixty-five subjects were selected for this study by randomly selecting classes from…

This paper discusses a mental model of learning based on the processes of attention, perception, processing, and application. The learning process starts with attention, such as curiosity, excitement, expectation, or fear; in pedagogy this is called motivation. New impressions are dependent on and interpreted against the background of previous…

The author discusses a need for planning research in reading, since present research seems fragmented, the federal government has not functioned especially well in the area of planning for funding or coordination with professional organizations, and there is a need to attract scientists in a variety of disciplines to work in educational research.…

Much recent cognitive and artificial intelligence research has focused on the development of "schema theory." This theory supposes the existence of knowledge and memory structures that encode prototypical descriptions of familiar concepts. Schema theory has developed in a scientific environment that stresses interdisciplinary approaches…

The effect of anxiety on learning in a variety of educational contexts is reviewed in general, and two areas of anxiety research especially relevant to educational psychology are reviewed in detail. The first is test anxiety reduction programs, and the second is the outcomes of these programs and the interaction between anxiety and instructional…

A two-session experiment was conducted to test the relationship of self-schemata to the processing of attitudinal information. In Session I, subjects were classified as either Religious (n=20) or Legal (n=19) in their schemata, using weighted response times to personality trait words on slides. In Session II, these subjects heard one of four…

An information-processing approach to language learning is examined; language aptitude is factored into the approach, and the role of working memory is discussed. The process of learning includes two processes that make heavy use of working memory is: automatization and restructuring. At first, learners must make a conscious effort to remember and…

Overviews of schema theory, which focuses on the cognitive operations engaged in by the reader, and discourse analysis, which focuses on structural characteristics of the text itself, are presented in this paper. The first section explains the notion of cognitive schemata (patterns of expectations that are applied to incoming information) and…

The adequacy of Rosenberg's classification scheme, in which he divides children's learning characteristics into four styles, was investigated. Middle school students (N=377) were used as a sample, and their behavior was assessed by 30 teachers using the Learning Style Checklist. After intercorrelations of the 40 Checklist items were obtained, the…

Performance becomes degraded when the human processing system undergoes the stress of processing overload. Information processing models are often used to predict how performance will be affected. Single channel models hypothesize that information will either be lost in the queue or processed with delay. Single capacity models predict that for a…

A study in two countries investigated college students' conceptions of "academic literacy," defined as the system of information exchange or mastery of the elements of such a system. Subjects were nine students, four at Ohio State University, a long-established "mega-university," and five at Universitat Pompeu Fabra, a small, newly-established…