Examined relations between algebraic word-problem attributes and students' strategies, errors, and problem difficulty. Found that constructed responses capture strategy formulation and high-level planning--as do traditional measures of quantitative reasoning--but are more sensitive to individual problem characteristics and procedural errors that…

Two characteristics that determine problem difficulty--the nature of the move search space and its interaction with other aspects of the task--were investigated in experiments in which 26, 69, 42, and 42 community college students attempted to solve the Chinese Ring Puzzle. The origins and implications of difficulty are discussed. (SLD)

Sixty elementary students with learning disabilities were interviewed about parallel domains of uncontested and contested knowledge on the topic of space, including questions of morality and questions of empirical law. Students clearly distinguished between uncontested and contested knowledge, suggesting that they are capable of working with…

Describes a framework for examining the effects of the cognitive complexity of tasks on language production and learner perceptions of task difficulty, and for motivating sequencing decisions in task-based syllabuses. Results of a study of the relationship between task complexity, difficulty and production show that increasing the cognitive…

For the thirty-seventh year, the Research and Theory Division and the Division of Instructional Design of the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT) sponsored the publication of these Proceedings. Papers published in this volume were presented at the annual AECT Convention in Jacksonville, Florida. This year's Proceedings…

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…

Research supported by a grant form the U.S. Office of Education, Bureau of Research

The learning machine described in this paper acquires concepts representable as conjunctive forms of the predicate calculus and behaviors representable as productions (antecedent-consequent pairs of such conjunctive forms): these concepts and behavior rules are inferred from sequentially presented pairs of examples by an algorithm that is probably…

Previous research on the nature of aptitude processes had ignored the important differences between speed and level of performance. However, investigations of the relationship between individual differences in speed and level suggest that speed of solving simple spatial tasks is largely independent of level attained on more complex spatial tasks.…

In secondary-task reading experiments, easy text filled cognitive capacity more completely than difficult text. A cognitive interpretation is that, in reading easy passages, the cognitive processors are full. But in difficult passages, frequent breakdowns in comprehension temporarily empty processor spaces, leaving cognitive capacity for the…

Two experiments investigated the effects of four teaching treatments on sixth graders' learning of an ecology curriculum. Recitation was more significant in improving learning than the other treatments--probing or followup questioning; redirection of a question to another student; and higher cognitive questioning. (Author/CP)

Argues that three tenets of the traditional wisdom about teacher questioning are based on inadequate research: (1) it is useful to classify questions as fact (lower level) or reason (higher level); (2) higher level questions are better; and (3) questions are good in general because they stimulate thought. (MBR)

One purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of different levels of item complexity on subsequent student achievement to help clarify the effectiveness of the transfer and hierarchical models. (Authors/MB)