A study of 240 students in grades 4-10 found that fourth graders performed well on a proverb comprehension task involving contextual information, refuting earlier findings that preadolescents interpret proverbs literally. Performance was found to improve steadily through grade eight and was correlated to performance on a perceptual analogical…

This study examined the transition from concrete to formal operations in very bright children in an effort to determine whether high ability in concrete operations would carry over into formal operational ability, and also to investigate precocity in regard to formal operations. Subjects were 38 white middle-class children ranging in age from…

About 25 children in each of grades 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 were tested in their ability to solve linear syllogisms, such as: John is taller than Mary. Mary is taller than Pete. Who is tallest--John, Mary, or Pete? Response latencies and error rates decreased across grade levels and sessions. Component latencies also generally decreased with increasing…

Developmental patterns in the solution of verbal analogies, especially the recognition of higher-order analogical relations, were traced. The investigation sought to: (1) provide new developmental tests of a componential theory of analogical reasoning; (2) identify strategy changes during the transition from midchildhood (grade 3) to adulthood…

This study tested certain implied predictions regarding conceptual learning at each of four sequential levels of development: concrete level, identity level, classificatory level, and formal level. For this purpose, scaled batteries to assess the level of conceptual development of children, kindergarten through high school, were constructed and a…

This investigation analyzed sex-related and age-related differences on spatial visualization tasks, reasoning tasks, and mathematical problem-solving tasks; and the effects instruction in visual thinking would have on these differences. Students in fifth grade, ninth grade, and in college, were tested before and after twelve weeks of instruction…

Age differences in recognition and recall of common nouns were studied using three groups of fifty students, with mean ages of 6.7, 11.4, and 16.9. Subjects were randomly placed in either an incidental or intentional learning condition. All subjects were questioned about the physical, phonemic, and semantic aspects of the same words, in the same…

Students in Grades six, seven, and eight were asked to integrate existing information and initially unknown answers to prose-related questions for answering superordinate questions. Results suggest that grade level development of hypothetico-deductive skills interacts with instructional prompt levels and that these skills are essential to…

A four-year longitudinal study of concept attainment and uses of concepts, as specified by the Conceptual Learning and Development Model, is described. Data collected during the first two years were based upon the assessment of the concept, equilateral triangle. The assessment battery was administered to 351 children (grades K, 3, 6, and 9) in…

Developmental changes in self-perceptions were studied in children and adolescents in grades 4, 6, 8, 10, and 12. The responses of subjects to the question Who am I? were analyzed by means of a 30-category scoring system. Children described themselves in terms of their physical appearance and their behavior, while adolescents referred to their…

In 1985, for the first time, Pennsylvania's student assessment program included measures of a higher order thinking skills goal termed Analytical Thinking. These tests utilize a decision-making model to assess such skills as drawing inferences, identifying appropriate information to gather before making a decision, analogical reasoning,…

The Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) Model specifies four levels of concept attainment (concrete, identity, classificatory, and formal) and three uses of concepts (problem solving, subordinate-supraordinate, and principles). Longitudinal and cross-sectional studies of concept attainment may be conducted. The results of this study of 300…

For this study, the second in the cross sectional series, based on the Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) model, assessment batteries were developed to determine each child's level of attainment and related use of the concepts "equilateral triangle,""cutting tool,""noun," and "tree." Batteries were…

For this study, the second in the cross sectional series, based on the Conceptual Learning and Development (CLD) model, assessment batteries were developed to determine each child's level of concept attainment and also the related use of the concepts "equilateral triangle,""cutting tool,""noun," and "tree."…