Secondary school and college students can learn how to shape thought through shaping language by using tagmemic heuristics. To approach writing as a thinking process, students apply three heuristics: one for identifying and stating problems, one for exploring problems, and one for evaluating hypotheses or solutions. Guided by a series of…

A rationale for the teaching of thinking and problem-solving skills is outlined, and the definition of and design for teaching such skills are discussed. Developing the ability of students to think has surfaced in recent years as one of the major purposes of American education. Problem solving has been described as a major type of thinking…

This study investigated the extent to which participation by high school students in a computer programming course leads to improved critical thinking skills, and whether a significant difference exists in critical thinking skill development between participants in Pascal and BASIC classes. Three groups of high school students were tested using…

The focus of this paper is on some of the difficulties students experience in learning from texts and in solving other types of academic problems, because of their failure to distinguish between skills needed for everyday thinking and those needed for academic thinking. The paper discusses the types of processing problems children experience when…

A study continued a series of empirical investigations into the psychological criteria people use to determine whether or not to make particular arguments. Two hundred volunteers enrolled in a required public-speaking course (1) responded to several demographic questions, (2) described the persuasive choices they would make in the scenario…

This document presents a first approximation for a model for student performance in solving linear equations. First, characteristics of a model of student performance for solving linear equations is discussed. It is noted that there is a need for some theoretical structure to support and organize the bits and pieces of information provided by…

In this paper, research on teachers' judgments, instructional planning, and decision making during classroom interaction is reviewed. Research studies chosen for this paper were selected on the basis of two fundamental assumptions: (1) Teachers behave reasonably in making judgments and decisions; and (2) Their behaviors are guided by their…

Everyday life provides individuals with countless opportunities for observing and interacting with objects in motion. Although everyone presumably has some sort of knowledge about motion, it is by no means clear what form(s) this knowledge may take. The research described in this paper determined what sorts of knowledge are in fact acquired…

To determine how children cope with some of the demands imposed on them by arithmetic word problems, 200 sixth-graders were asked to solve prolems modeled after those used by the National Assessment of Educational Progress. A quantitative demand was imposed on the children by adding extraneous information to the problems, and a verbal demand was…

Spider World is an interactive program designed to help individuals with no previous computer experience to learn the fundamentals of programming. The program emphasizes cognitive tasks which are central to programming and provides significant problem-solving opportunities. In Spider World, the user commands a hypothetical robot (called the…

Attempts to train learning strategies have not produced marked or lasting increases in academic IQ, probably because current training models fail to recognize the evolutionary nature of strategies acquisition. Empirical and theoretical evidence supports an incidental learning model, which engineers the instructional environment following study…

Futures research involves speculation about alternative developments based upon existing data and potential choices. Effective futures research requires creativity in scientific practice rather than an overemphasis on reason. In discussing the important role of intuition in futures research, characteristics of creative scientists are reviewed and…

There is little doubt that intervention research based on metacognitive principles has been remarkably successful in improving children's performance on a range of academic tasks. However, to build on this success, at least three modifications need to be made in the way metacognition is usually thought about. First, more attention needs to be…

From a search of (mostly French) literature, a hypothesis was formulated that students with both academic training and work experience would solve a practical learning problem more easily than students with academic learning only. A study was conducted at the Conservatoire National des Arts et Metiers in Paris to test this hypothesis. Two groups,…

The development of game theory was a response to a need to understand human decision making processes in situations of incomplete or imperfect information. By reducing decision making situations to probability game systems, it is possible to analyze and test various competitive strategies that maximize wins and minimize losses. Although game…