This article describes key facets of the Cognitive Acceleration through Science Education (CASE), a curriculum that emerged in the United Kingdom, enabling teachers to accelerate the process of cognitive development so that more students could attain the higher-order thinking skills (formal operational thinking) required (Lecky, 2012). CASE, also…

Science educators have long been concerned with how formal schooling contributes to learners' capacities to engage with science after school. This article frames productive engagement as fundamentally about the coordination of claims with evidence, but such coordination requires a number of reasoning capabilities to evaluate the strength of…

The Lawson Classroom Test of Scientific Reasoning (LCTSR) was used to gauge the relative effectiveness of three different methods of pedagogy, "Reading, Presenting, and Questioning" (RPQ), "Experimenting and Discussion" (ED), and "Traditional Methods" (TM), on increasing students' level of scientific thinking. The…

Presents the procedures, results, and conclusions of a study designed to compare the cognitive performance of students from a new curricula (PSSC) and from traditional (non-PSSC) curricula. Results essentially supported contention that PSSC materials were more effective in developing higher cognitive skills. (DS)

Although there was an increase in the proportion of students using the logical principle of exclusion" from grades 7 to 9 to 12, there was little relationship with IQ and socio-economic measures. (AL)

Students' preferences changed from applied to theoretical aspects of physics, and from recall of facts to identification of fundamental principles during two years of study of the Physical Science Study Committee in Australian High Schools. (AL)

Reports the results of a study that indicate that junior and senior high school science students are penalized (by receiving lower grades) for not being able to think at the formal operational level. Outlines some methods that may be used to facilitate growth in cognitive development of students. (JR)

Two Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) approaches to teaching high school biology were employed to study the relative effects which different curriculum approaches might have on certain intellectual aptitudes of students. Subjects included 144 students enrolled in the BSCS Yellow Version and 143 students enrolled in BSCS Blue Version.…

Investigates the effects of high school chemistry experiences on the use of Piaget's operative structures. Reports that students who took chemistry scored higher than those who did not on a test of Piaget's operative comprehension. (GA)

The use of Piaget's Displacement Volume task is shown to be a reasonably good indicator of early formal reasoning. A paper-and-pencil task is also shown effective in measuring the same stage of reasoning. (MN)

Examples of explanations students give during science lessons are used to demonstrate that there are a number of very different modes of explaining. In addition, it is suggested that the peculiarly scientific method of explanation is fraught with difficulties, some of which current learning theories may just be able to describe. Areas discussed…

This book is intended to give teachers and student teachers a better understanding of the thinking of adolescent students in science lessons and to indicate the difficulties such students have in understanding the more abstract or formal ideas with which they are presented. It is practical in its orientation as the issues discussed are illustrated…

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…

Describes grade 9 student responses to instructional materials constructed on objectives derived from Piaget's balance and inclined place problems. Concludes the presence of a hierarchy only in the balance objectives. Indicates implications worthy of further studies. (CC)

Comments on the study reported by Lawson, Karplus, and Adi (1978) which indicated that formal schemata and propositional logic are not part of the same structured unity of mental operations proposed by Piaget. (HM)