What prompts the students to respond in online dialogic discussion? Why some students chose to fall out? This case study through the lens of phenomenography observation attempts to explain the five decision steps of students to respond in Meta-cognitive Learning in Free Online Groups (MetaL-FrOG) discussion. It presents a part of a research…

This study attempted to extend prior research on everyday problem solving by analyzing the effects of goal clarity and the presence or absence of a partner on performance in a number of problems. Subjects were 35 undergraduates who were screened, matched, and tested as singles or dyads during which time they thought aloud. Problems included mazes,…

Compared 12 old and 12 young adults in two information-processing tasks (a rotated figures task and a sentence verification task). The age difference was minimized when older adults adopted strategies that reduced processing. They were more disadvantaged when employing strategies that imposed greater processing demands or memory load. (JAC)

The task consisted of categorizing a set of slides depicting concepts of freedom, nonfreedom, justice, and nonjustice. The results of the analysis indicated that abstract thinkers performed significantly better than did concrete thinkers and that performance increased as a function of grade level. (Author/BJG)

This report examines certain home cultural factors, cultural orientations, and learning preferences of African American school children from low-income backgrounds in order to document the relationship of prior cultural socialization experiences to enhanced cognitive, performance, and motivational outcomes. A conceptual basis is suggested for the…

Human performance on verbal and spatial matching tasks was assessed every 15 minutes for eight hours. Significant 90- to 100-minute oscillations were observed for each task. It was also found that increases in performance on one task are accompanied by decreases on the other. (HM)

The relationship between processing style (either auditory or visual) and sentence and imagery strategies was investigated with a sample of 80 second-grade children. Assignment to auditory- and visual-processor groups was based on subjects' recall of 16 pictograph sequences, four of which included visual interference and four of which included…

One of the important cognitive strategies individuals use when learning is to organize many bits of information into integrated patterns called chunks. To investigate the process of chunking spatial information, 32 college students integrated two cognitive maps either before or after an interfering task. The combined spatial layout formed either a…

The article examines the nature of performance deficits in exceptional learners as they relate to the ability to perform complex cognitive tasks. (PHR)

One hundred twelve college students participated in a study designed to determine whether students differ in their relative employment of knowledge-based processes in discourse processing and whether individuals tend to be more "text-bound" and less able to use preexisting knowledge schemata when they are more "stimulus-bound"…

An exploratory study was undertaken to provide a means of quantifying some of the components of the problem solving process. The focus was on actual problem solving behaviors and strategies as they occurred in relation to different cognitive tasks and subject characteristics. Cognitive tasks included items from Wechsler and Binet intelligence…

The degree of relationship between academic achievement, as assessed by college grade-point average, and information processing habits, as measured by the scales of the Inventory of Learning Processes (ILP) was investigated. Results specify differences in processing between successful and unsuccessful students. (Author/JKS)

This report is the third in a series of research projects concerning abilities and performance processes, particularly in school mathematics. A theoretical scrutiny of traditional psychometric testing, cognitive processes, their interrelationships, and an empirical application of the theoretical considerations on the level of junior secondary…

As early as 1964, cognitive preference was introduced as a way of describing an individual's preference for applying, relating or questioning information. To determine the role of cognitive preference in the pattern of variables predicting teachers' ratings of students' performance, 44 high school students completed a 61-item cognitive preference…

Examined developmental and individual differences in tendencies to favor analytic over heuristic responses in three tasks (inductive reasoning, deduction under belief bias conditions, probabilistic reasoning) in children varying in age and cognitive ability. Found significant increases in analytic responding with development on first two tasks.…