This thesis reports a study of the effects of two types of advance organizer instruction, expository (EO) and guided self-discovery (GSDO), in teaching hierarchical classification or relations to preschool children. In the study, four experimental and one control group received three 25 minute instructional sessions. Using the same materials,…

Five modes and strategies for improving cognition in reading are discussed. As defined by the author, cignition concerns recognition of knowledge and development of intellectual skills and abilities. The five points discussed are: (1) cognitive skills can be arranged in a hierarchy; (2) to teach students at or near the apex of the hierarchy,…

In Piaget's dynamic conception of the child's cognitive growth, the transition from sensory-motor intelligence to the developmental stage of representational intelligence occurs during 5 to 7 years of age. The development proceeds from undifferentiation to differentiation, from unintentional to intentional, from unintelligent to intelligent, and…

Based on a study of 50 children between the ages of 3;0 and 5;6, the reasons for the differential difficulty of various forms of "who,""why,""when," and "how" questions are postulated. (EJS)

Several early and contemporary theories of the role of play and make-believe are discussed. Studies which have examined the antecedents of social class differences in the young child's play are also explored and their implications for later development and education are analyzed. (Author/AM)

Research on the psychological processes involved in historical thinking indicates that formal operational thinking skills required to understand history develop relatively late. Although studies have indicated teachers can do little to accelerate historical cognitive development, most scholars believe students at all levels can learn historical…

Children in grades 1-3 were asked to retell and explain a series of riddles. Ability to recall riddles was not predictive of ability to explain them. Three cognitive factors seemed to determine level of riddle competence. Implications concern the relationship of riddle competence to reading ability and metalinguistic facility. (CHK)

An experiment demonstrating that children in Piaget's preoperational stage, who generally still cannot give conceptually correct answers to questions about rate and time, evidence an ability to imitate a given rate-time relationship demonstrated by the experimenter. (ST)

Contains 15 articles investigating and discussing issues generated by Piaget's theory of cognitive development. Discusses and examines questions related to object permanence, transitivity, conservation and the concept of necessity as these relate to children. Deals with the origins and causes of development, logical development, social and…

Piaget's ideas are discussed: that the basic thrust of education is determined by the intellectual development of the child, that the child's intelligence develops in definite stages, and that the goal of the developmental process is to reason in logical terms. (MLW)

Understanding the nature of the 5- to 7-year shift is essential if educators are to help children adjust to elementary school. The timing and quality of this shift is influenced by child characteristics, home environment, cultural context, and previous group learning experience. Since child development depends on children's engagement in cultural…

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 or internal representation refers to an organized system of information which reflects certain, but not all, of the information about reality being represented. This paper considers various opinions, controversies, and debates about what representation is, how it comes about, and what forms of representation can be distinguished. The…

The Perry scheme of intellectual and ethical development has become widely used in a range of academic disciplines and such areas as career training and faculty consultation. However, current measurement techniques for the scheme, whether interview format or paper and pencil measures, do not adequately address issues related to assessing cognitive…