This study was concerned with student transition from concrete to formal cognitive functioning. Results of training 32 fifth-grade and 32 seventh-grade students indicated that instruction can effect the desired transition of ability to isolate and control variables. (SL)

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)

Points out that an aspect of Piaget's theory, the concept of stage, is being misrepresented through vague and incorrect use of the idea. (Author/GA)

Five items requiring use of proportional, probabilistic, and correlational reasoning were administered to students (N=391) in grades 6, 8, 10, and 12. Argues that successful qualitative reasoning arises as a consequence of equilibration and influences selection of course work and that specific instruction may initiate the equilibration process.…

Compares the linguistic performance of the students in three grades exhibiting different levels of performance on five selected Piaget-type tasks, and identifies those tasks which differentiated significantly between the cognitive levels and the linguistic performance of the subjects. (Author/GA)

Investigates the effectiveness of two conflict-producing procedures: (1) Peer interaction and conflict training; and (2) Teacher conflict training in promoting the development of logical thinking of fifth-graders as measured by the acquisition of conservation of area. (HM)

Investigates the visual resemblance sorting cognitive abilities of 120 Hawaiian and 100 Malaysian first-grade children using five booklets, each containing seven test drawings. Results revealed that the performance of the two groups was about the same. The difference in scores for four of the five booklets was not significant. (HM)

Comments on the study reported by Lawson, Karplus, and Adi (1978) which indicated that formal schemata and propositional logic are not part of the same structured unity of mental operations proposed by Piaget. (HM)

Describes research studies stimulated by the concern for facilitation of logical operations in elementary school and junior high school children and based on the assumption that the level of reasoning used for inquiry and concept acquisition by every individual is substantially below his capacity. (PEB)

Investigates the cognitive functioning of 106 college freshmen using six paper-pencil Piagetian-based tasks. Results show that only 25 percent of the freshmen tested were reasoning at a formal level. (HM)

Results of this study confirm discrimination of the intensive time-series design and indicate that it can be used to distinguish differences in learning (comprehension and knowledge) between eighth-grade earth science students (N=95) having formal cognitive tendencies and those having concrete cognitive tendencies. (JN)

Investigates whether an environmental program including an advance organizer component and a field experience results in an observable change in the environmental orientations of fifth- and sixth-grade students. Results show positive change. (HM)

Peer interaction combined with the use of concrete models and analogs found to enhance learning (cognitive and affective) for both formal and nonformal operational students (N=51). Instruction in control class was based on lectures, CHEM study laboratories and individual work. (Author/SK)