Although literature on educational objectives dates back more than 50 years, the last 20 years have seen a renewal of interest in objectives. The taxonomy approach currently in use expresses objectives in terms that are evidenced by pupil behavior. This approach deals with objectives that relate to three separate domains of learning: Cognitive,…

The state of Connecticut has introduced a fourth-grade mastery test that assesses thinking skills. The test was developed cooperatively by the state's Department of Education, a testing corporation, and several cognitive psychologists; several alternative models of thinking were synthesized to produce a theoretical foundation for the test. (MCG)

Presents an interview with an intelligence expert and author who proposes that the scope of intelligence testing be broadened according to his new taxonomy of intelligence, and that schools use intelligence tests to diagnose individual students' strengths and weaknesses. (MCG)

This paper investigates the need for the infusion of critical thinking instruction into the teaching of the journalistic practice of questioning. Given research done in the area of questioning, it seems probable that critical thinking instruction could enable students to employ self-directed thinking skills that would allow them to ask better…

Experiment 1 suggested that age differences in line-drawing interpretation among subjects between 6 and 24 years reflected changes in short-term memory for features and changes in strategies used to integrate features over space and time. Experiment 2 suggested that older observers were more active in their attempts to interpret drawings and that…

The need to teach critical thinking skills at all educational levels continues. But teachers should not rely on special courses and tests to do the job. Instead, teachers should create an atmosphere that encourages critical inquiry. Thinking skills activities for various content areas are reviewed. (BB)

Describes a taxonomy of computer user modes in distance education and identifies three major learning and behavioral processes that are extended by computers: (1) information processing; (2) interaction; and (3) communication. Highlights for each process include the relationship to other media, pedagogical functions, hardware and software, and…

Two experiments with 42 second graders, 55 fourth graders, and 36 fifth graders investigated previous findings of a lack of strategic advantage for expert children dealing with information in their area of expertise. Results from using an expert-novice paradigm suggest that expert children's task advantage is mediated primarily by nonstrategic…

This study of visual and auditory problems in 17 children (ages 7-10) with dyslexia concluded that, although eye tracking and binocular fusion problems should always be considered in the assessment of dyslexics, factors involved in information processing in auditory and visual perception appear to be more highly implicated. (Author/JDD)

Children as young as five years of age responded faster in a categorical task when information was initially presented to the left hemisphere, and faster in a coordinate task when information was initially presented to the right hemisphere. This finding provided evidence for the existence of distinct subsystems that compute categorial and…

How do children determine the syntactic category of novel words? In this article we present the results of 2 experiments that investigated whether German children between 12 and 16 months of age can use distributional knowledge that determiners precede nouns and subject pronouns precede verbs to syntactically categorize adjacent novel words.…

Recent research into students' reasoning about variation refers specifically to notions of distribution that emerge. This paper reports on research where written responses, from tertiary introductory statistics students, were coded according to the level of consideration of variation. A hierarchy of reasoning about distribution is proposed, based…

This research compared how elementary school teachers and professors of developmental psychology organize knowledge about child development. It compared them in the light of two hypotheses: (1) compared to professors, teachers are "novices" about developmental psychology; and (2) compared to professors, teachers have…

The National Association of Secondary School Principals (NASSP) published a new learning style instrument in 1986--the NASSP Learning Style Profile (LSP). The LSP yields independent scores on 24 discrete elements of learning style. Its purpose is to provide educators with a well-validated and easy to use instrument for diagnosing cognitive styles,…

This paper examines cognitive processing problems associated with attention deficit disorders (ADD) and their relationship to learning disabilities in elementary and secondary students. Children with ADD, medicated (N=20) and unmedicated (N=21), were compared on the Raven test of Progressive Matrices and other tests with children who had been…