Presents an investigation of 13- and 14-year-old students' classification skills when they analyze scientific data in science lessons. Finds that less-able students could only classify according to discrete criteria, and that the scientific context influenced students' classification skills. (Contains 18 references.) (Author/WRM)

Children often perseverate, repeating prior behaviors when inappropriate. This work tested the roles of verbal labels and stimulus novelty in such perseveration. Three-year-old children sorted cards by one rule and were then instructed to switch to a second rule. In a basic condition, cards had familiar shapes and colors and both rules were stated…

This article describes several sessions of a larger case study that examined cognitive categories for library information in a group of children in kindergarten through grade 4. While the initial motivation for the project was pragmatic in nature, theoretical issues relating to people's cognitive categories for information are examined as well.…

The Transtheoretical Model (Prochaska & Marcus, 1994) has been widely used as a framework for understanding exercise behavior change. The purpose of this study was to clarify equivocal research findings reported for model predictions when examining stage movement over time rather than static stages and to provide some evidence of the construct…

Two experiments tested predictions from a theory in which processing load depends on relational complexity (RC), the number of variables related in a single decision. Tasks from six domains (transitivity, hierarchical classification, class inclusion, cardinality, relative-clause sentence comprehension, and hypothesis testing) were administered to…

The genetic study of ADHD has made considerable progress. Further developments in the field will be reliant in part on identifying the most appropriate phenotypes for genetic analysis. The use of both categorical and dimensional measures of symptoms related to ADHD has been productive. The use of multiple reporters is a valuable feature of the…

This study examined the hypothesis that age-related increases in reasoning ability are associated with the ability to represent relations of increasing complexity, defined as the number of entities related. The study's purpose was to determine the extent to which this ability to process relations with three entities increased between ages 4 and 8…

To determine how procedural instructions comprised of text and pictures are comprehended and executed, a research review focused on (1) differences in comprehension and performance attributable to variations in the information's organization, (2) the format of the information, (3) the metacognitive strategies employed by the readers, and (4) the…

The approach taken to discourse analysis that classifies text types according to isolated linguistic features is criticized, and an alternative approach to argumentative texts is proposed. This approach looks at the process of argumentation as an instance of the problem-solving process. The argumentative text is then seen as moving from the…

A study investigated reconstructive recall for linguistic style. It was hypothesized that (1) features of linguistic style would be more difficult to recall than underlying content, (2) reconstructive errors would include stylistic forms recalled as standard forms when subjects lacked productive control of a particular feature of a style, and (3)…

A study investigated how young children understand natural kind terms by examining how 3- and 4-year-olds rely on category membership to draw inductive inferences about objects. One hundred four children (53 girls and 51 boys) from six preschools in California and Michigan participated in the study. The children were shown 10 sets of pictures of…

The differences in performance on a variety of cognitive measures were studied in 67 learning disabled (LD) and normal elementary school children. Younger and older Ss were administered tests of conceptual sorting, central and incidental learning, and selective attention. Teacher ratings of classroom hyperactive behavior were also examined. LD Ss…

This study investigates the training of inner-city first and second graders in Piagetian classification skills. Twenty boys and 20 girls were pretested for necessary baseline knowledge and were randomly assigned to experimental and control groups. Both groups were given training programs intended to assist the children in developing classification…

Benjamin Bloom's "Taxonomy of Educational Objectives" can be used effectively to develop and evaluate a sequential secondary-school curriculum in literature, regardless of the school's content emphasis or curricular philosophy. The two available volumes of the "Taxonomy"--dealing with the cognitive domain of knowledge, skills,…

Compared on classificatory ability were the performances of children in grades 2-4 who had been exposed to the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS) program for two years and children who had not. No significant differences in performance either quantitatively or qualitatively were detected. It was concluded that the grouping and…