Intended to illuminate current understanding of how the reader's cognition and language and the text's structure affect the processing of prose, this volume contains articles written by educators, linguists, psychologists, and artificial intelligence experts on issues of comprehension research. The first part of the book examines reading…

The major focus of this study, it is stated, was on two comparisons of performance of four pre-school groups consisting of retarded, brain-injured, normal, and disadvantaged subjects; examining both the effects of two versus three dimensional formats on and the correlation between identification and Concept-Matching responses. [Available from R &…

Questions concerning individual differences in learning ability may be more precisely addressed in light of an agreed-upon taxonomy of learning skills. Existing taxonomies are reviewed, and their shortcomings are described. A taxonomy is then proposed based on a synthesis of current thought consisting of four dimensions: the forms of knowledge;…

Characteristics of successful and unsuccessful problem solvers in categorization tasks are examined in this study of undergraduate students. Findings are reviewed of the categorization and solution tasks undertaken by a group (N=21) of science majors at a private university. The subjects were classified as either successful or unsuccessful in…

The effects of observational purpose are thought to impact on such diverse processes as categorization, behavior perception, trait ascription, and memory. The role of observational purpose in the categorization of behavior was explored to determine whether differences between trait and goal concepts affect certain information-processing…

This study investigated the potential use of a cognitive measure to detect differential effects on children's styles of performance and behavior. A stratified random sample of 96 children across schools, sex and preschool attendance were selected for testing from the five kindergarten classes associated with the Mt. Druitt Early Childhood Project…

The relationship between higher cognitive teacher questions and the nature of the cognitive thought processes involved in the student answers was investigated. Literature was reviewed, resulting in the selection of Blooms Taxonomy, and the Aschner and Gallagher, Smith and Meux systems for classifying higher cognitive thought processes. A pilot…

Much research in the area of person perception has dealt with the problem of how people organize information about other people, including how familiarity mediates the cognitive organization of person information. One multi-operational investigation found that information sets about familiar people, as opposed to unfamiliar people, resulted in the…

A REPORT OF A CONFERENCE ON RESEARCH IN SPEECH AND HEARING FOR MENTALLY RETARDED CHILDREN IS PRESENTED. THE MAIN AREAS INCLUDED ARE THEORETICAL APPROACHES TO LANGUAGE AND COMMUNICATION, PROCEDURES FOR MEASURING LANGUAGE, AND SPECIAL METHODS FOR TREATMENT. SPECIFIC REPORTS GIVEN ARE--"PSYCHOLINGUISTICS IN THE STUDY OF MENTAL RETARDATION"…

THE DEVELOPMENT OF CRITICAL THINKING ABILITIES IS A PERVASIVE AND IMPORTANT OBJECTIVE OF AMERICAN SECONDARY AND HIGHER EDUCATION. ALTHOUGH CRITICAL THINKING ABILITIES HAVE RECEIVED RECOGNITION AS WORTHY EDUCATIONAL GOALS, FEW STUDY GROUPS AND EVEN FEWER TEACHERS ARE ABLE TO DEFINE THE MEANS OF INSTRUCTION THROUGH WHICH SUCH GOALS ARE REALIZED. IN…

Thirteen graduate students were asked to indicate for each of 24 multiple-choice items whether the item tested "recall of specific information," a "higher order skill," or "don't know." The students were also asked to state their general basis for judging the items. The 24 items had been previously classified according to Bloom's cognitive-skills…

The purpose of this study was to improve the reliability of the Sigel Cognitive Style Test. Post hoc analysis of ninety test protocols had indicated that the original thirty-five card test could be shortened to improve the test's reliability. This analysis also showed that males were responding to certain cards differently from females.…

Explores content or contextual validity of social rule classifications produced by sample of 12-year-old child coders. Analyses of variances revealed that categorization schemes generated by child coders were contextually valid as determined by raters' mean ratings. (Author/RWB)

Presents a classification scheme applicable to systematic instructional design, which partitions the cognitive domain into the four levels of knowledge, understanding, mental processes, and strategies, each of which encompasses specific instructional objectives. Guidelines are offered to assist in the design and construction of these instructional…

Focusing on one teacher's categorization of students'"searching" behavior, describes a case study drawn from ethnographic investigations of classrooms in France and offers a model of the interpretative process. (RH)