Students who viewed demonstrations or manipulated apparatus understood the relational concepts (of the form a/b = a'/b') of speed, force, and work better than a control group, but did not differ significantly from each other. (AL)

Points out the fact that Piaget's objections to tests as ways of identifying cognitive structures and processes have been largely ignored in most of the replication studies conducted by English and American psychologists. (PEB)

Speed and acceleration tasks were administered to children in grades three through six. Piaget's results were replicated. Suggestions concerning the appropriate grade level to introduce different types of motion tasks are made. (AL)

Reports a study using the F-Sort of Biology Concepts to assess understanding of 37 concepts. Analyses indicated that college student biology majors and experienced secondary science teachers were separated from scientists by a dimension based on a deep-versus-surface structure understanding of the concepts. (over 40 references) (Author/PR)

Argues that affective learning is a poorly understood phenomenon and that objective-setting and evaluation for learning in the affective domain are often neglected in educational programs. Addresses the problem this creates for nonformal science-learning centers. Contains 38 references. (DDR)

Studied effectiveness of teaching conservation of chemical identity, composition, and mass to 12 boys and 11 girls of ages ranging from 11.11 to 12.10, using techniques analogous to Piaget's. Indicated the necessity of course re-examination to facilitate attainment of conservation concepts. (CC)

Investigates the differential effect of an advanced organizer on the meaningful learning and retention of information presented to the learner in a sequential, structured program of individualized instruction. (Author/GS)

Presented is a paradigm for science education research. The paradigm advances the reception learning theory, where regularities to be learned are presented explicitly to the learner. A tool for the study of knowledge production in science education, the Gowin "V," is presented. (RE)

Investigates the attainment of abstract and concrete concepts and the use of pseudoexamples to move concrete thinkers to abstract levels in secondary school chemistry classes. Findings reveal abstract students achieve significantly higher means on both concrete and abstract concept attainment and that pseudo examples have no effect on the ability…

Advocates artificial neural networks as models for cognition and development. Provides an example of how such models work in the context of a well-known Piagetian developmental task and school science activity: balance beam problems. (Contains 59 references.) (Author/WRM)

Investigated effects on meaningful learning achievement of concept-related instructional organization and locus of control orientation of 541 high school students. Indicates that externally-oriented subjects exposed to the treatment generally retained more than those in a comparison group. Other results are reported and discussed. (Author/JN)

Five-year-old children were less successful in forming concepts of similarity of leaves and in communicating leaf shape to other students than older children. A preformed concept of leaf shape facilitates communication. (AL)

Presents a theory of learning in science based on students deriving conceptual linkages among multiple models which represent physical phenomena at different levels of abstraction. Finds that high school students who were exposed to derivational links among three models for basic electricity performed better when solving both qualitative and…

Investigates the conceptual-change process in grade 10 students during a computer-supported physics unit. Finds that many students vacillated between alternative and scientific conceptions from one context to another during instruction, and those few students who did exhibit context-independent and stable conceptual change appeared able to accept…

Reports on a study which investigated the order of acquisition of intuitive notions of qualitative speed. Results indicated that an array of prerequisites, equivalent, and independent relationships existed among the tasks administered. Confirmed the evolution of reasoning for notions of qualitative speed found by Piaget. (Author/TW)