Suggests that students who reason with only concrete thinking patterns may become formal thinkers through the use of the following instructional pattern: (1) the introduction of an undifferentiated whole, (2) differentiation of the whole through concrete experiences, (3) invention of symbolic notation, (4) application of concepts which lead to…

Reports on a study conducted to obtain indications of changes in mental level from high school through college and to investigate the relationship of cognitive level to SAT scores, college grades, and attrition. (PEB)

The Future Homemakers of America (FHA) organization has historically provided an ideal climate for development of critical thinking by devoting conscious attention to thinking, teaching skills directly, and providing opportunities for interaction through cooperative learning and discussion. Strategies for expanding the knowledge base and building…

To determine the effects of instruction in general semantics on the critical thinking of secondary students, 104 tenth- and eleventh-grade students in control and experimental groups completed the "Watson-Glaser Critical Thinking Appraisal" test before and after the 12-week teaching period, in which two teachers spent 1 hour per week in the…

Discusses the need to teach earth science material at the cognitive level of development of the student and presents examples of earth science related tests of formal and concrete operational competencies. (SL)

The findings of Piaget suggest that learning physics can help people achieve a series of four distinct but overlapping stages of intellectual growth as they search for patterns and relationships. (MLH)

Introduces biology teachers to the central ideas of Piaget's theory of intellectual development. Also presents a scheme of biology instruction and classroom procedures based on a Piaget-related theory of learning. (PEB)

This document reports data on 610 secondary level Australian high school students drawn from 36 urban and rural high schools to determine levels of Piagetian cognitive development, provide a profile of field independence (FDI) across the urban population, validate the Understanding in Science Test instrument, and determine influence of reading…

The development of formal operations in normal adolescents is briefly examined, and a discussion of the development of exceptional adolescents focuses on the following exceptionalities: retardation, blindness, deafness, and giftedness. Some directions for future research are considered. (DLS)

Briefly reports on a study involving 419 randomly selected secondary school students who were given five Piagetian tasks to identify their level of cognitive development. (PEB)

Investigates differences between adolescents and older adults in their explanations of linguistic metaphors. Adults displayed a synthesizing, integrative perspective, while adolescents displayed an analytic perspective in their explanation of metaphors. (Author/SS)

Many chemists want to be effective teachers but have little background in psychology or education on which to build successful practices. The primary audience for this book is chemistry teachers at the secondary and tertiary levels, and its purpose is to encourage readers to construct a new understanding of how their students learn. This book is…

A cognitive gap between students' development and school curriculum may be one of the reasons why chemistry is difficult for high school students. This study examined cognitive development in the effect of modified instructional methods for students at the concrete stage of development. The Arlin Test of Formal Reasoning (ATFR) was used for…

It was the purpose of this study to design a secondary school curriculum in narrative and dramatic literature which would reflect the growth of structures of thought and behavior in early and middle adolescence. Based on Jean Piaget's theory of intellectual development which begins in the student's experiences and works toward…

Questions investigated in this study deal with relationships between map problem difficulty and students' acquired level of intellectual development, the effects of sequential mastery of map concepts, and the optimum age to introduce certain map concepts in the geography curriculum. In the main investigation, which covered varied selected,…