A study was made to determine how the rate of spelling and the retention of spelling words was influenced by the number and spacing of practice presentations on unlearned words. Sixth-grade students (42) in East Palo Alto were drilled by a computer for 6 weeks on six lists of 12 different spelling words each. They drilled on one list until (1)…

The instructional process has four major components: stimulation, orientation, transformation, and instrumental activity. Concerning stimulation, the instructor should highlight either the novelty or the complexity of the learning materials. Varying such factors as teaching style and mode of presentation, duration of instruction, and the learner's…

This paper discusses a pilot program for a writing course taught by four teachers at Drexel University. One of the primary assumptions was that a course in writing was also one in language. The object of the course was to ask the students to become conscious of themselves as learners and writers and to attempt to discover the function of language…

Elementary school (kindergarten through sixth grade) deaf children were exposed to varied thinking activities based on J. Piaget's principle of action rooted intelligence to determine if thinking might be successfully encouraged in the classroom through activities which were not highly dependent on verbal performance. Each class of approximately…

The effects of visual, and verbal/visual, preorganizers and postorganizers on the learning of unfamiliar information were evaluated in an experimental study involving 153 community college students. Pre- and postorganizers were used in connection with a 20-minute lesson on the theory of communication. A 25-item, multiple-choice criterion test was…

Reviews recent experimental and theoretical analyses of the relationship between level of processing and retention, and reports on two studies which tested predictions about the effects of orienting activities on retention. (AM)

In six experiments subjects saw and pronounced, either aloud or silently, seven-item lists made from vocabularies of phonologically identical items. These materials were used to test the predictions of a precategorical and a postcategorical hypotheses for the modality effect in immediate memory. (Author/SW)

Reports three experiments demonstrating that recall for words increases with deeper levels of processing and with longer rehearsal intervals. Asserts that there is no interaction between those strategies. (PMJ)

Discusses individual perceptional modality preferences, including verbalization versus visualization, reading versus listening, and audio versus video. Literature on perception and on mental representation and learning styles is reviewed, and theoretical and practical implications for instructional materials design are suggested, including the use…

This paper reports on an investigation of children's ability to accept contrary-to-fact premises as though they were factual and to reason accordingly. A variety of questions requiring this skill were presented in semi-structured interview form to 10 to 12 subjects from each of six age groups ranging from 5 to 9 years, and to a control group of…

A TWO-YEAR SEMINAR IN LEARNING THEORY AND THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF EDUCATION WAS CONDUCTED FOR A FACULTY GROUP OF A SMALL PRIVATE LIBERAL ARTS COLLEGE. EIGHT VISITING RESEARCHERS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION PRESENTED THEIR WORK AND DISCUSSED ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR TEACHING AND LEARNING WITH RESPECT TO THE DISCIPLINES REPRESENTED BY 22 FACULTY…

To obtain an a priori estimate of natural language mediators (NLM's) 320 pairs of words with the consonant-vowel-consonant-pattern (CVC's) were broken into four series of 90 pairs and presented to 240 male and female undergraduates. Pairs were shown for 15 seconds while the subjects wrote down any associative device or NLM they could generate that…

The four experiments of this study represent the first stage on a program of research designed to clarify the nature and development of certain implicit verbal behavior and to move toward application of this knowledge to school learning situations and problems. Specifically, the experiments were created to investigate some aspect of the implicit…

Reports on research showing that when an event, or a problem, is repeated, the processing of that event is not necessarily repeated. Instead, sometimes the solution is remembered, and this is shown to influence subsequent retention, as well as such tasks as word perception. (AM)

Findings imply that while preschool children both enjoy and profit from listening to stories read to them in unelaborated fashion, they gain much more from observing and participating in the actions portrayed in the stories. (FL)