Personal epistemological beliefs, one's beliefs about the nature and acquisition of knowledge, and their role in the learning process have become a focus of a growing body of research in recent years. Studies show that a person's epistemological beliefs play an important role in their intellectual development as well as in learning specific…

One of the most important questions I ask as both a cultural anthropologist and a university teacher is: How do people come to know what they think they know? In this article, I adopt a narrative approach to processes of learning and discovery in two very different locales, an indigenous society in the South Pacific, and a senior seminar on…

The creative-aesthetic approach to educational stimulation accelerates the development of question-asking skills, of the 5-year olds tested, more than the traditional kindergarten approach. (Author/MF)

In this study, which involved 87 freshman English students at Brigham Young University, the variety of practice items and the strategy of Practice (convergent or divergent) were systematically varied, in order to assess their effects on a rule-finding task. The task was presented in an expository fashion, using both rules and practice, and in a…

Reported is a study of the effects of using the counterintuitive event in science teaching on subject-matter achievement and subject-matter retention of upper-elementary school students. Two separate units of instruction based on the demonstration-discussion method were designed for the study. A unit of instruction was designed for the control…

Studies effects of verbal participation during enquiry on achievement among three differently treated groups of four eighth-grade classes each with I.Q. test, reading test, sociometric, and academiometric results taken into account. Indicated the preference of strategies involving more students, particularly more girls, in class discussion. (CC)

This article presents an explorative study, which is part of a comprehensive project to examine the impact of epistemological beliefs on metacognitive calibration during learning processes within a complex hypermedia information system. More specifically, this study investigates: 1) if learners differentiate between tasks of different complexity,…

The purpose of this study was to test the learning by discovery controversy. Three seventh-grade science classes of above average readers were selected and randomly assigned to one of three experimental treatments: discovery, guided discovery, or programed instruction. The instructional materials were derived from the Michigan Science Curriculum…

Acknowledging a recent increased interest in research about self-directed learning, this report analyzes and discusses two different forms of education: self-directed learning and distance education. Here, self-directed learning is identical with autodidactic learning, a form of education that cannot be included in organized adult education; the…

THIS VOLUME IS DIVIDED INTO FIVE MAJOR SECTIONS. IN THE FIRST SECTION, HAWKINS STATES THAT THERE ARE CERTAIN THINGS WHICH CAN ONLY BE LEARNED BY DISCOVERY. GLASER IMPLIES THAT WHEN AN OBJECT IS DESCRIBED IN BEHAVIORAL TERMS, THE BEHAVIOR IS TEACHABLE. IN THE SECOND SECTION, WITTROCK REVIEWS THE LITERATURE OF RESEARCH. CRONBACH PRESENTS A CRITICAL…

Three limitations of the Barnes and Clawson review (EJ 135 379), which concluded that advance organizers do not facilitate learning, are discussed. Several theories of the effects of advance organizers on internal cognitive processes are presented, and theory-related studies provide evidence that advance organizers can affect learning in…

The paper discusses the use of music-based experiments to illuminate teachers' understanding of their own and pupils' informal ways of learning. The major objective of the paper is to help teachers understand students' learning processes. Because one central problem in academic research is that of finding the right questions, researchers should…

Third grade pupils from a suburban school district were subjects of a study which examined the effects of two social studies teaching strategies, demonstration deductive and directed discovery inductive, and two intelligence levels as they affected mastery, immediate retention, immediate transfer, delayed retention, and delayed transfer. Three…