This study investigated relations between the distribution of practice problems in textbooks and students' learning of decimal arithmetic. In Study 1, we analyzed the distributions of decimal arithmetic practice problems that appeared in 3 leading math textbook series in the United States. Similar imbalances in the relative frequencies of decimal…

Numerical magnitude knowledge is related to current math abilities and predictive of future math learning. However, this relationship has previously been shown only for knowledge of positive magnitudes; the present study is the first, to our knowledge, to examine the connection between magnitude knowledge and math ability with negative integers.…

Introducing new concepts to learners in an order of increasing complexity appears to be beneficial for learning, but typically introduction of concepts does not always adhere to this principle. We examined whether introducing new algebra concepts in a contrasted manner or in an order of increasing complexity instead of a different more typical…

Results indicated that negative instances were an integral part of concept acquisiton. The relationship between the positive and negative instances was based upon similarity of irrelevant attributes and sentence difficulty. (Author)

The strategy variables investigated were: 1) sequence, a presentation of instances according to a defined relationship of the stimuli--organized versus random; and 2) analytical explanation, a verbal statement presented with each instance which analyzed the presence or absence of the critical attributes. Concept learning implications were…

The task consisted of categorizing a set of slides depicting concepts of freedom, nonfreedom, justice, and nonjustice. The results of the analysis indicated that abstract thinkers performed significantly better than did concrete thinkers and that performance increased as a function of grade level. (Author/BJG)

In seven experiments, college or high school students studied texts containing either adjunct application or adjunct factual questions. Students were then tested for their ability to apply the presented concepts. Results suggested that the type of adjunct question had little influence on students' later ability to apply presented concepts.…

Instructional variables were manipulated to determine whether they influence the level of perceptual analysis. The relationships of perceptual analysis to concept learning and evaluations of the instructors were also examined in the study. (Author/GK)

Results indicated that discovery subjects took significantly longer than verbal reception subjects in the first-, third-, and sixth-grades to reach the original learning criterion. Verbal reception subjects generally demonstrated performance which was superior to discovery subjects on all measures of retention and transfer. (Author/BJG)

The development and validation of the Test of Thematic Analysis (TTA) are described. The TTA measures the effects of liberal education as distinct from other kinds of education and general maturation. Scores were higher among seniors than freshmen at traditional liberal arts colleges. No significant differences were obtained at two vocationally…