Decades of research indicate that peer interaction, where individuals discuss or work on a task collaboratively, may be beneficial for children's and adolescents' learning. Yet, we do not know which features of interaction may be related to learning from peer interaction. This meta-analysis examined results from 62 articles with 71 studies into…

Two studies investigated memory processes involved in the Visual-Sequential Memory subtest of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities. In study 1, differences between second and fourth graders were due to greater use of stimulus labeling strategies by fourth graders. In study 2, labeling strategies were taught, improving performance.…

An unfamiliar story either was read to children from an illustrated book or presented as a televised film. Response measures examined recall of story content as well as inferences about characters and events. The groups differed in the type of information recalled and in the way inferences were made. (Author/GDC)

This study explored the contribution of two working memory (WM) systems to reading performance in younger and older children. Results showed significant age-related differences in verbal and visual-spatial WM performance were maintained when articulation speed and short-term memory were partialed from the analysis and that WM predicted age-related…

Children at three age levels (four-, six-, and eight-year-olds) were asked a series of class inclusion questions presented verbally, visually, and kinesthetically. Analysis of correctness of reasons showed main effects of age and of condition. (Author/GK)

The effects of neutral, separate, and interactive imagery instructions on the learning performance of first and fifth graders were compared for both single-item and paired-associate tasks. Results revealed that both younger and older children using images did show facilitation, compared with those not using images. (Author/GK)

Investigations of the effects of visual imagery and pictorial stimuli on young children's oral prose learning indicated: (1) age differences affect the ability to profit from self-generated imagery; (2) experimenter-provided cues help to generate imagery; and (3) the type of cue provided relates to the kind of information recalled. (Author/GDC)

Six-and eight-year olds were exposed to a modeling sequence for cluster rule learning under high, medium, and low degrees of structure. Age differences in vicarious learning emerged only in the medium structure condition, while immediately imitating a model failed to influence learning for either age group. (Author/CP)

Purpose of the study was to investigate those stable characteristics of children which allow some to learn more efficiently under some conditions and others to learn more efficiently under other conditions. (Author)

The cognitive determinants of number series completion performance were studied by presenting a systematic set of problems to college adults and to average- and high-IQ elementary school children. In each group, a combination of process and content-knowledge variables accounted for more than 70 percent of the variance in solution difficulty.…

Proactive interference (PI) build-up and release from PI were used to study automatic conceptual encoding of superordinate and subordinate category lists in low-socioeconomic status (SES) Black children and middle-SES White children (grades 2 and 4). (Results for each population on the three category lists are described). (GDC)

The role of elaborative interrogation in children's learning of facts was investigated in 2 experiments involving 211 female and 185 male Canadian fourth through eighth graders. When compared to the facts alone, precise elaborations given by the experimenter, or learner-constructed imagery, elaborative interrogation produced better learning in…