K-12 students enter physical education with many naive conceptions or misconceptions of how motor skills are acquired. One goal of physical education is to teach concepts that will help students learn and perform motor skills, but many practitioners don't know how to provide experiences that will teach students to apply their knowledge…

Article considered how teachers can make art easier for children to experience and understand. (Author/RK)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of hypothesis testing instructions compared to brief instructions on the speed of shift problem solution of grade school age subjects, in order to provide information on the development of hypothesis testing behavior in children and the sampling characteristics of hypothesis testing in these…

The effects and interactions of 3 variables on concept learning and retention were investigated: (1) method of stimulus presentation; (2) learning process; and (3) intellectual ability. One hundred and forty-four (144) 4th graders were divided into 4 groups, each of which was further subdivided into high, middle, and low intellectual ability…

This study investigated the use of negative instances in deductive concept learning and studied the effect of the type of negative instance used. No significant differences in concept learning were found. (Author)

Critiques two popular and current perspectives on the nature of understanding in science education, and offers a competing perspective drawing from Dewey, aesthetics, and aesthetic experience. Uses aesthetic understanding as an analytic lens to critique and illuminate the learning of three students studying geology in a fourth-grade classroom.…

Investigated seven-year-old children's understanding of certain geographical terms. Found that children this age have considerable difficulty with some concepts and that even vernacular terms are often misunderstood. Results support the idea of children's alternative conceptions and suggest that, for teaching to be more effective, children's prior…

The effects of observing a model and of providing a response rule on the learning, transfer, and retention of a dial-reading, numerical concept were studied in 144 third-graders. Different experimenters conducted the immediate learning procedures versus the measurements of retention. No extrinsic reinforcers were promised or dispensed. The…

AN INQUIRY (SPECIFIC DISCOVERY) APPROACH TO LEARNING WAS SUBJECTED TO A RIGOROUS TEST AND EVALUATION PROGRAM, INVOLVING ELEMENTARY INSTRUCTION IN THE PHYSICAL SCIENCES. STUDENTS IN THE FOURTH, FIFTH, AND SIXTH GRADES SERVED AS SUBJECTS. EVALUATIVE CRITERIA WERE (1) SCIENCE CONCEPT ACHIEVEMENT, (2) DIVERGENT THINKING OR CREATIVITY, AND (3)…

Reports results of a study investigating effects of social interaction on utilization of categorical concepts by upper and lower class children. Describes an experimental guessing game with individual subjects and pairs of subjects. Concludes that the experimental setup was beneficial for all subjects regardless of social background or kind of…