This study presents our attempt to elicit students' progression in understanding the matter concept. Past work has identified the big ideas about matter students need to understand, the many everyday understandings students hold about these ideas, and levels of understanding through which students progress in developing understanding of the big…

Tested were six levels of a twelve-level hierarchical model for the attainment of concepts leading to the conservation of displacement volume. Presentation was by individual interview using either objects or drawings to present tasks. Results show five of six tested followed anticipated order and that method of presentation showed no significant…

Describes a study which used fourth and sixth grade children who had used Science - A Process Approach" and compared their performance with that of a control group on two conservation-of-volume tasks. Performance of the volume tasks was found to be related to age and score on the Learning Hierarchies Test and not to previous science program…

Twenty-three high school biology students using the Biological Sciences Curriculum Study (BSCS) Blue Textbook were administered a weight conservation and two volume conservation tasks. A majority performed below formal-operational level, indicating that these students would be likely to encounter difficuluty with BSCS Blue Version materials. (MLH)

Studies of the hierarchical attainment of conservation of physics concepts revealed significant differences with respect to age, sex, and grade level in a random sample of seventh and eighth grade students. Conservation of a quantity did not necessarily depend on the prior conservation of its constituent fundamental quantities. (MLH)

Speed and acceleration tasks were administered to children in grades three through six. Piaget's results were replicated. Suggestions concerning the appropriate grade level to introduce different types of motion tasks are made. (AL)

Studied effectiveness of teaching conservation of chemical identity, composition, and mass to 12 boys and 11 girls of ages ranging from 11.11 to 12.10, using techniques analogous to Piaget's. Indicated the necessity of course re-examination to facilitate attainment of conservation concepts. (CC)

Investigates the effectiveness of two conflict-producing procedures: (1) Peer interaction and conflict training; and (2) Teacher conflict training in promoting the development of logical thinking of fifth-graders as measured by the acquisition of conservation of area. (HM)

Studied classroom behaviors and conservation ability of elementary school science students taught by either Student-Structured Learning in Science (SSLS) or Teacher-Structured Learning in Science (TSLS). Reports on how behavior of conservers and nonconservers differs in SSLS and TSLS with respect to observing, following directions, and inventing…

Examined were children's conception of changes in the state of matter and their understanding of the reversibility of the process. The relationship between children's intuitive ideas about matter, as observed in this study, and their logical ability to conserve weight is discussed. (CW)

Investigated was the hypothesis that conservation tasks are unifactor by administering eight different conservation tasks to 96 seventh-grade science students and performing a principal component analysis on the data. Results indicated that conservation tasks may measure up to three different components of cognitive thought. (SL)

Debates as to the appropriateness of using the Karplus Islands Puzzle as an instrument to assess formal-operational thought. (CP)

Reports a study that investigated the relationship among (1) teacher's attitudes and implementation of inservice workshop developed learning cycle science materials, and (2) elementary school student's conservation reasoning and language used to describe properties of objects. Data were gathered from 100 students from grades K-5 and 16 teachers…

This study (n=192) examined the use of analogical instruction to overcome misconceptions about conservation of matter. Students who understood the concept conservation of matter when iodine was evaporated were able to transfer their understanding to the evaporation of acetone. This indicates that teaching by analogy can be an effective tool in…