The Bologna Process places special emphasis on the outcomes of higher education in terms of employability and key competencies. Taking Germany as an example, this article examines whether the introduction of a two-tier degree structure actually has led to an enhanced acquisition of key competencies. Based on constructivist learning theories, in…

This paper begins by reviewing the results of research on the potential of adjunct questions for teaching both rote recall and intellectual skills, i.e., concept learning, problem solving, and rule learning. It is argued that greater understanding of what kinds of questions best support intellectual skills learning will promote effective…

Investigates predictions derived from the Karmiloff Smith framework for understanding the process of cognitive development. Finds broad support for the model but also indicates that behavior for some tasks is more variable than expected; and, contrary to expectations, that more abstract tasks did not disrupt behavior to any large extent. (DSK)

Tests the hypothesis that two general developmentally-based levels of hypothesis-testing skills exist. Finds a positive relationship between level of hypothesis-testing skill and performance on a transfer problem involving the test of a hypothesis based on unobservable entities. Also finds a positive relationship between level of…

This study reports two experiments which indicate that the processes of providing subjects with insightful representations of example programs and guiding subjects through an "ideal" problem solving strategy facilitate learning. A production system model (GRAPES) has been developed that simulates problem-solving and learning in the…

A study using a biasing paradigm examined four hypotheses regarding specific mechanisms thought to underlie the Assimilation-plus-Correction (A-C) theory of schema-text interactions. According to this theory, the ideas implied by a schema (type-1 ideas) are thought to be assimilated and obscured, while those ideas representing novel information…

Several tasks were developed to investigate adolescents' ability to see correlations in data and to test hypotheses. Emphasis was placed on methodology: do students clearly understand the problem and do the tasks tap the skills they claim to? The 20 ninth-grade and 20 eleventh-grade boys and 15 college freshmen were tested. Most students did…

The selective learning hypothesis holds that individuals' learning of prose passages will be affected in varying ways by the passages' threatening or unpleasant content. To test this hypothesis, 19 college students read six prose passages--three containing threatening material and three nonthreatening--and then completed a cloze test for each…

The process of forming operator schemata was studied in three experiments. In each experiment a greater amount of predictive information in a stimulus item increased the chance of selecting the operator accurately.

This study investigated relationships among locus of control, instructional mode, and achievement for externally and internally oriented students taught by the same instructor using two different teaching methods. A definite relationship was found among the variables, and internally oriented students attained higher achievement levels where…