Cognitive processes are procedures for using existing knowledge to combine it with new knowledge and make decisions based on that knowledge. This study aims to identify the cognitive structure of students during information processing based on the level of algebraic reasoning ability. This type of research is qualitative with exploratory methods.…

A study had been conducted in qualitative design employing phenomenology approach to examine the cognitive basis and the semantic structure of phenomena based reasoning of lower secondary school students in Ambon. The data of the study were collected by using a test. Phenomena stimulus of science was given to the informants in the form of…

This study aims to provide insights into the role of learners' knowledge structures about a socio-scientific issue (SSI) in their informal reasoning on the issue. A total of 42 non-science major university students' knowledge structures and informal reasoning were assessed with multidimensional analyses. With both qualitative and…

Cognitive scientists have studied internal cognitive structures, processes, and systems for decades in order to understand how they function in human learning. Nevertheless, questions concerning the diagnosis of changes in these cognitive structures while solving inductive reasoning tasks are still being scrutinized. This paper reports findings…

Analogies are parts of human thought. From them, we can acquire new knowledge or change that which already exists in our cognitive structure. In this sense, understanding the analogical reasoning process becomes an essential condition to understand how we learn. Despite the importance of such an understanding, there is no general agreement in…

The challenge to the dominance of rationality in educational philosophy presented by John Dewey and Donald Schon is examined in this paper. The paper identifies basic assumptions of their perspective and explains concepts of reflective thinking, which include biography, context of uncertainty, and "not-yet." A model of reflective thought…

This paper describes the Structure-Mapping Engine (SME), a cognitive simulation program for studying human analogical processing. SME is based on Gentner's Structure-Mapping theory of analogy, and provides a "tool kit" for constructing matching algorithms consistent with this theory. This flexibility enhances cognitive simulation studies by…

Argues that reasoning is not governed by mental logic or models. Proposes new operational semantic theory, in which reasoning is based on children's operational understanding of key terms in a given problem. Reports results of a study of class inclusion in which dramatic differences in performance were found as the result of linguistic context.…

The research reported in this paper is concerned with the ability of students of English as a second language (ESL) to apply cognitive skills in reading. The paper focuses on: (1) a validation study of an experimental test designed to measure Piagetian concrete operations in reading and (2) the effects of the paragraph types (additive or…

Specific modes of formal reasoning and measurements of principled moral reasoning ability were obtained from 99 10th-grade students. Hierarchical relationships were found amoung variables with combinatorial and correlational reasoning accounting for 22 percent of the variance in principled moral reasoning. Theoretical and educational implications…

Examined children's ability to settle causal relations and their capacity to make conclusions based on certain experiences and representations. Found that preschool children have a solid explanatory basis for their everyday life, within which facts are not generally accepted but are interpreted through a certain "logic," and the motives…

Two experiments investigated kindergarten through fourth-graders' and adults' ability to evaluate the certainty of deductive inferences, inductive inferences, and guesses, and explain the origins of inferential knowledge. Findings indicated that children rated their own deductions as more certain than guesses, but when judging another person's…

Describes a stage structure concern for children and phonics. Discusses that among all of the cognitive concepts and abilities constructed by young children, quantitative operations are most closely associated with early successful use of phonics. (JK)

This study describes the relationship of two cognitive variables, logical thinking and disembedding ability, to learners' abilities to make conceptual shifts from less acceptable to more acceptable conceptual understandings of a physical phenomenon. The difference in the logical thinking and disembedding ability of students who exhibited different…

Students (N=49) enrolled in a physics course for elementary teachers were evaluated for their abilities to use: (1) combinatorial logic; (2) separation and control of variables; (3) proportional reasoning; and (4) reciprocal implications. Performance of four Piagetian tasks during interviews was treated as a measure of the degree to which students…