One of the most challenging daily experiences of teaching young adolescents is helping them transition from Piaget's concrete to the formal operational stage of cognitive development during the middle school years. Students who have reached formal operations can design and test hypotheses, engage in deductive reasoning, use flexible thinking,…

Two years after the end of a two-year intervention program set within the context of science learning intended to promote formal operational thinking, achievement of students (n=234) was tested by their results on British National examinations taken at age 16. Male experimental subjects achieved an average of 40 percent more grades of C or above…

This paper provides an introduction to the Alberta Education Developmental Framework, and describes the provincial department's position on curriculum and the cognitive domain. Intended for use in designing and implementing instruction, the developmental framework delineates the developmental stages and processes through which students progress,…

Reviews the neural modeling principles of learning, perception, cognition, and motor control, discusses their applications to sensory-motor problem solving, and explores possible relationships between that pattern of problem solving and aspects of higher order formal operational problem solving. Cites implications for science education. (ML)

Reviewed are recent studies of the cognitive development of Chinese children. The discussion identifies: (1) systematic studies of children's cognitive development; (2) studies on the development of thinking; (3) studies of memory development; and (4) studies on the influences of various national cultures and education on the development of…

In an attempt to accelerate the development of formal operations in average young adolescents, up to 30 intervention lessons relating to all formal schemata were given by science teachers, over a period of 2 years, to classes in eight British schools. Boys starting the program aged 12 years-plus showed a pre-test, post-test effect size on…

The purpose of this descriptive study was to investigate the developmental patterns in logical reasoning of students in grades 6-10 over a span of 20 months. The Group Assessment of Logical Thinking (GALT) was administered to the sample (N=84) during the fall of 1986, the fall of 1987, and the spring of 1988. The GALT measures six reasoning modes:…

A common concern raised by teachers from secondary schools and junior colleges in Singapore is the apparent inability or reluctance of adolescents to think critically and originally. Adolescent thought processes are probably shaped by the change in intellectual pace and quality between the primary and secondary school curriculum. This study of…

The cognitive development and affective development of Korean secondary school students were studied to obtain information for the development of curricula and texts, particularly for teaching the English language. Subjects responding to objective tests included 3,164 male and female students from 54 classes of 18 middle schools, and 1,981 male…