The primary goal of this review is to acquaint developmental psychologists who have had little experience in the study of individual differences in cognition with some of the basic rules that govern this type of research. A second goal is to stimulate researchers to consider the potential benefits of studying differences among individuals whose…

Research related to the training and measurement of cognitive skills (effective behaviors in situations in which events must be organized or structured in some way) represents a point of common ground between the educator and the behavioral scientist. That we so seldom train for generalized cognitive skills is paradoxical, for most authorities…

In a pilot study of children's drawings of "a house with a tree behind it," Piagetian sequence (scribbling, fortuitous realism, failed realism, intellectual realism, and visual realism) was tentatively supported. Children's strategies in decentering from intellectual to visual realism were noted. The study reported in this paper was…

One of a series of investigations on the Project on an Information Memory Model, the purpose of this study was to determine the amount and kind of visual information processed and stored in the memory of children using different modalities of observation. Children, aged 5, 9 and 13 years, were randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups.…

The purposes of this study include: (1) determining whether socioeconomic status (SES) or verbal ability (VA) exerts greater influence on childrens' performance of Piagetian tasks; (2) devising an instrument for measuring childrens' level of cognitive development which does not depend on verbal ability alone; and (3) adapting materials for teacher…

The author examines the effectiveness of the Inquiry Strategy method which he hypothesizes to be useful in developing an analytical cognitive style. Ninety-two subjects from four, large urban high schools were involved. Forty-two were experimental, having received 2-3 years of Inquiry Strategy exposure in their late elementary or early junior high…

The conclusion of this study involving a treatment group and a group receiving no treatment was that teaching faculty could grow significantly in knowledge of teaching objectives, behaviors, skills, and processes in a training program. (RC)

Describes procedures used to measure students' cognitive learning in an American government course. The procedures combined evaluation of instructor effectiveness, teaching efficiency, student learning, and student demographic characteristics. (AV)

Investigated was the hypothesis that conservation tasks are unifactor by administering eight different conservation tasks to 96 seventh-grade science students and performing a principal component analysis on the data. Results indicated that conservation tasks may measure up to three different components of cognitive thought. (SL)

Investigates effects of an independent variable (grade) on three dependent variables (membership, partial association, and generalization) describing preferential styles of thinking in 1635 pupils, measured by a 16 concept word test. (DS)

A study investigated the relationship between scores on individual and group cognitive measures and those on achievement tests for disadvantaged first grade students. (FL)

Presents data on reasoning abilities of science and non-science majors at one private, liberal arts university. Indicates that most students taking physics are formal operational or into transition to formal reasoning and that six concrete operational students dropped the course. (JN)

Investigated proportional reasoning abilities of 35 college science students using projection of shadows problem while presenting relevant only or relevant/irrelevant information. Field independence was measured using Group Embedded Figures Test. Students in relevant only condition performed significantly better. Degree of field independence…

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)

Proposes that cognitive developmental stages can be accounted for in terms of information processing factors which limit the highest level of cognitive system which children can attain at any given age. Delineates four progressively more complex levels of cognitive mediation of the environment. Two experiments which support the developmental model…