In the United States, fractions are an important part of the middle school curriculum, yet many middle school students struggle with fraction concepts. Teachers also have difficulty with the conceptual understanding needed to teach fractions and rely on textbooks when making instructional decisions. This reliance on textbooks, the idea that…

Children trained in the clustering-operations approach showed greater achievement than those trained in a traditional approach. The clustering approach presents all four operations simultaneously. (MP)

Provides an abridgment of a section of a chapter on "Environmental Education Research Related to Issue Awareness" for the 1984 National Commission for Environmental Education Research Report. Major emphasis is on the section dealing with instructional strategies for developing awareness of environmental issues. (JN)

The elementary school science curriculum program, Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS), was investigated to determine effects upon students' attitudes toward science and perception of the science instruction. The data show favorable results. (MP)

This survey reports data showing that mathematics courses generally use a modern approach but that there appears to be a slightly increased preference for traditional mathematics. (MP)

This paper reviews meta-analysis procedures and several meta-analysis findings related to science teachings. Several generalizations are offered, one which indicates that instructional techniques which help students focus on learning (preinstructional strategies, increased structure in verbal content of materials, use of concrete objects) are…

The purpose of this study was to examine tendencies for students to be more successful in solving verbal problems based on situations for which they possess measured interest. (MP)

Advance organizers may fail to promote learning even though they are approximately related to the main learning experience and internally meaningful and logical. If they are to optimize the likelihood that new materials will be readily and properly subsumed, they must also be constructed to conform to the cognitive preparedness and scholastic…

This research examined the strategy of writing a mathematics problem on the chalk board and asking "who in the class can solve it?" as a means of assessing the mathematics achievement or attitude of a sixth-grade mathematics class. The strategy was found to be unreliable. More evidence is needed. (Author/MA)

This research study shows that it is possible to advance the use of proportional reasoning of many secondary school students by means of a well-designed teaching program. (MP)

Studied the effectiveness of an instructional method which involved analysis of learning tasks into a hierarchy of subordinate tasks, diagnosis of students' mastery, and instruction of unmastered subordinates. Concluded that the task-analysis procedures were satisfactory for teaching an elementary mathematical task. (CC)

Reports the results of a study that indicate that junior and senior high school science students are penalized (by receiving lower grades) for not being able to think at the formal operational level. Outlines some methods that may be used to facilitate growth in cognitive development of students. (JR)

Two sections of a course in physical science for elementary education majors used the balance beam. When taught to transfer from that material to others, students did much better than those who did not receive training. (MNS)

This study designed a criterion-referenced format for scoring subjective student tasks in science education courses and gathered student opinion on the acceptability of the scoring technique. A sample and results of a preservice teacher survey are supplied. (MP)

Questions the reliability of the normal Cloze Technique in which every fifth word is deleted in printed materials. Determines that students' mean replacement rates for passages are dependent upon word length; thus providing widely ranged scores for different passages. (CP)