Presented is a study in which students' intellectual reasoning development was evaluated following instruction that emphasized formal operations in a traditional lecture format. Results indicated that formal-operational students had significantly more success in the three reasoning areas than transitional students and transitional students had…

Effective teaching strategies must be developed to help students bridge the gap between concrete operational thinking and full formal thinking in the content areas. Reading for meaning requires readers to categorize subjects, recognize relationships, develop and maintain a sequence of thought, recognize and understand inferences, and draw…

This study investigated preservice elementary teacher reasoning ability levels, science anxiety levels, and content achievement in a large midwestern university. Pretest and posttest measures were taken on three dependent variables: (1) reasoning ability (cognitive development); (2) science anxiety; and (3) science content achievement. In…

This paper is a summary of much of the available research on college science laboratory instruction of the past decade with a focus on the effects of specific laboratory teaching strategies upon student learning outcomes. Some tentative interpretations from a review of the literature found are: (1) inquiry or investigative approaches in college…

Popular sentiment toward the teaching of thinking skills and, in particular, higher order skills, is on the rise. Many people are wondering about the best way for teachers to foster the growth of reasoning skills in their classrooms. This study attempts to improve the teaching of reasoning by investigating teaching behaviors or characteristics…