To examine whether children's acquisition of perspective-marking language supports development in their ability to reason about mental states, we conducted a longitudinal study testing whether proficiency with complement clauses around age 3 explained variance in false-belief reasoning 6 months later. Forty-five English-speaking 2- and 3-year-olds…

A qualitatively oriented mixed methods case study was conducted to investigate the effects of incorporating LEGO robotics into a 7th-grade mathematics curriculum. Using the lenses of Social Constructivist Theory and the Five Stages of Technology Integration, this research focused on the development of proportional reasoning skills. The data show…

According to Klahr's (2000, 2005; Klahr & Dunbar, 1988) Scientific Discovery as Dual Search model, inquiry processes require three cognitive components: hypothesis generation, experimentation, and evidence evaluation. The aim of the present study was to investigate (a) when the ability to evaluate perfect covariation, imperfect covariation,…

Students' abstract reasoning abilities can differ from one society to another. Students' profiles play significant roles in these differences. The aim of the study is to determine the relationship between middle school students' cognitive development levels and their profiles (age, gender, and science achievement) using the Science Cognitive…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship between the achievement of some abstract concepts in "molecular genetics" and prior knowledge, formal reasoning ability, and sex. The major findings of the study were: (1) prior knowledge had a high significant correlation with the achievement of abstract concepts; (2) the…

Matrix tasks designed to assess the logical properties of multiple classification and multiple seriation were administered to 105 first, third, and fifth grade children. The tasks included cross-class and double series matrices, each of which had a reproduction and a transposition instructional set, and a revised set of cross-class and double…

This practicum addresses the need to organize a structured problem solving program for fifth and seventh grade students. The improvement of the students' problem solving skills and the enhancement of students' attitudes toward problem solving in mathematics were the main goals. The program implemented consisted of a structured problem solving…