This is an empirical inquiry concerning children's concept development and early mathematics teaching. The intention is to broaden the understanding of preschool children's perceptions of the concept "half" (as 1 of 2 equal parts of a whole), in designed mathematics teaching settings. Three teachers working with 4-5-year-old children…

The variation theory stems from the concept of phenomenography. Although some applications of the theory can be found, the theory is not well known in the field of education, especially with respect to the teaching of business and management subjects. The aim of this paper is to explore the use of the variation theory for teaching management…

This paper presents a formulation of a constructivist perspective and shows how it is applicable to teacher education. (CM)

Proposes a model of mathematics conceptual development consisting of two phases: abstraction and generalization. Illustrates model by references to the development of multiplication and angle concepts. (19 references) (MKR)

The terms generalization and abstraction are used with various shades of meaning by mathematicians and mathematics educators. Introduced is the idea of "generic abstraction" that gives the student an operative sense of a mathematical concept and provides a passage point in the process toward formal abstraction. (MDH)

A model for the analysis of simple human conceptual behavior, based on the apparent similarities of human conceptual behavior and that of infrahuman subjects, is developed. A minimum definition of conceptual behavior is given: A single response, verbal or nonverbal, under the discriminative control of a group of stimuli whose parameters are…

The 9th International Conference on Educational Data Mining (EDM 2016) is held under the auspices of the International Educational Data Mining Society at the Sheraton Raleigh Hotel, in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, in the USA. The conference, held June 29-July 2, 2016, follows the eight previous editions (Madrid 2015, London 2014, Memphis…

The term, "schema," used largely as a descriptive convenience rather than a theoretical guidepost in social psychology is examined through an analysis of its development, function, and structure. This paper articulates a model of schema development in adults by defining a schema as a representation of some stimulus domain and a set of…

Three experiments tested the application to art of an hypothesis from the concept attainment literature, that conceptual learning is enhanced by providing multiple examples prior to test trials. Subjects were given discrimination tasks involving surrealistic and non-surrealistic paintings. The feature abstraction model proved inadequate in this…

One of the most important capacities which children employ when learning language is the capacity to generalize. A child who hears an utterance of a verbal expression while perceiving a particular object (or action, aspect, etc.) becomes normally able to apply the expression not only to this object but also to all those objects which, for him, are…

The process of students' conceptual change was evaluated during a computer-supported physics unit in a Grade 10 science class. Computer simulation programs were developed to confront students' alternative conceptions in mechanics. A conceptual test was administered as pre-, post-, and delayed post-tests to determine students' conceptual change.…

Two studies explored the possibility of inducing conservation understanding in intellectually normal preschoolers and mildly mentally retarded children of comparable mental age. Retarded children, MA 3-10 to 5-0, received Verbal Rule instruction. Three- and 4-year-old children were given Verbal Rule training in a 2 x 2 x 2 factorial design…

Investigates the conceptual-change process in grade 10 students during a computer-supported physics unit. Finds that many students vacillated between alternative and scientific conceptions from one context to another during instruction, and those few students who did exhibit context-independent and stable conceptual change appeared able to accept…

Piaget's notions about schema retention were examined using a sample of 384 disadvantaged four, five, and six year old children from a wide geographical area. The purpose was to examine the idea that schemas may be destroyed or modified by specific methods of interference using a retroactive inhibition model. Pictorial scenes were generated and…

Presents a method for improving reading comprehension through direct instruction of inductive reasoning. Students gather clues to personality of characters as play progresses and from these arrive at an overall generalization concerning the complexities of the character. (SRT)