Three studies are reported for children participating in the Elementary Science Study (ESS) program. They are the cognitive and affective performances and the classroom learning environment. Three groups of ESS children were evaluated: nine-year-olds, ten-year-olds, and eleven-year-olds. Each age group contained 30 randomly selected subjects. The…

Discusses students' formation of concepts about energy, classifying responses as living/nonliving, human (vitalism or activity), and nonhuman (supply or demand). Observations were based on class discussions and free writing, followed by questioning to check on stability of concepts. Also collected and reported are student responses (examples of…

Describes a study by British researchers that attempted to describe progression in learning in terms of a common framework for all students. Elementary school students completed periodic interviews while being taught measurement skills. Results found a wide spread of attainment in measurement in each age range but less clear progression between…

The purpose of this study was to investigate the difference in attitude toward and achievement in science between boys and girls in grade two (n=129) and in grade five (n=154) and to compare the differences found for elementary school students to those found previously for middle school students. For this study, "attitude toward science" was…

Reports on a continuing project to study children's use of the Science Library Catalog (SLC), a graphically based direct manipulation microcomputer interface for locating science materials in elementary school libraries. Search success on SLC, which uses HyperCard, is compared with a Boolean system; effects of age and gender are studied; and user…