The period from adolescence through young adulthood is one of great promise and vulnerability. As teenagers approach maturity, they must develop and apply the skills and habits necessary to navigate adulthood and compete in an ever more technological and globalized world. But as parents and researchers have long known, there is a crucial dichotomy…

Three studies examined the development of category-based induction using an induction then recognition (ITR) procedure in which participants make category-based predictions about study items and are then given a surprise recognition test that requires discrimination between old and new category members. Exposure duration for study items was either…

Relational thinking plays a central role in human cognition. However, it is not known how children and adults acquire relational concepts and come to represent them in a form that is useful for the purposes of relational thinking (i.e., as structures that can be dynamically bound to arguments). The authors present a theory of how a psychologically…

The study examined the interaction of logical reasoning ability (cognitive development) and socio-economic status on achievement in genetics amongst secondary school students in Nigeria. Factorial Analysis of variance design with one dependent variable and two independent variables at two levels together with the t-test was used in the analysis of…

The proposed conceptualization of logical competence has 3 dimensions; principles, content, and complexity. (SB)

To find out if children could make functions before age 4, 73 children aged 1 to 4 were encouraged to imitate the use of a lever to make a beanbag fly up. Functions are mental relationships that preoperational children can make between 2 things at a time in a unidirectional way (Piaget, Grize, Szeminska, & Bang, 1968/1977). The child's…

Preschool teachers use the domino effect--standing dominos on end in rows and pushing one over--to examine how play contributes to children's acquisition of knowledge. Using diagrams, photos, and vignettes of children between the ages of 3 and 5 years, the authors demonstrate how children at different stages of development use physical knowledge…

A criticism of Youniss' (1975) dialectical conception of Piaget's figurative-operative distinction. It is suggested that the figurative-operative distinction does not meet the criteria for a subject-object dialectic. (JMB)

Assessed 3- to 7-year-old children's sensitivity to logical necessity by contrasting performance in insufficient and sufficient information conditions. A search task used in Experiments 1 and 2 allowed children to search for additional information in insufficient conditions. A judgement condition used in Experiment 2 required a "can't tell"…

Researchers have examined inductive reasoning to identify different cognitive processes when participants deal with inductive problems. This article presents a prescriptive theory of inductive reasoning that identifies cognitive processing using a procedural strategy for making comparisons. It is hypothesized that training in the use of the…

Eight-year-olds were able to make inferential judgments based on transitive size relations, while 6-year-olds were not. In addition, more older than younger subjects evidenced serial ordering, presumably a prerequisite for transitive inference. (MH)

This article emphasizes the need to encourage undergraduate students to develop arguments, which involves enhancing their analytical skills and capacity for critical thinking, across disciplines regardless of level. It argues that these skills, required by the Quality Assurance Agency's (QAA) benchmarks, are developed not by instruction, but by…

The present study had two major goals. The first goal was to assess the relative difficulty among different versions of the unexpected contents task by systematically varying the dimensions of grammatical mood (indicative vs. subjunctive) and person (self vs. other), and to examine the correlational pattern between these different versions of the…

Attempts to refute Riegel's (1973) claim that Piaget's formal operations distort reality for the sake of logic. It is suggested that Piaget's figurative-operative distinction is dialectical and that Piaget's theory is valuable precisely for its resolution of how a person remains internally ordered while adapting to the external world. (JMB)

THIS STUDY DEALT WITH THE CONCEPT OF DEDUCTIVE LOGIC AND ITS USE BY ADOLESCENTS, AGES 10-18. TWO EMPIRICAL QUESTIONS OF CONCERN IN THIS STUDY WERE (1) THAT OF READINESS FOR MASTERY OF LOGIC AND (2) THAT OF THE NATURAL-CULTURAL DEVELOPMENT OF MASTERY OF LOGIC. TWO DEDUCTION TESTS WERE DEVELOPED, ONE FOR EACH OF THE TYPES OF LOGIC TREATED. THEY WERE…