This full paper concerns an exploratory study that investigates students' reasoning about torsion. Mechanical reasoning is critical to engineering applications and yet students still struggle to accurately predict, analyze, and model mechanical systems using formal symbolic notations (i.e., formalizations). To understand the nature of students'…

This study, which examined children's understanding of machines, focused on how children decide which objects are machines and which are not, and how they group machines as similar or different. Brainstorming sessions involving two groups of four kindergarten children and one class each from the second, fourth, and fifth grade, were conducted.…

This study investigated how people reason about simple mechanical devices and physical systems, and how reasoning methods and understanding of a device evolve over a period of exposure. Twelve students attending the Teachers College at Columbia University (New York) participated in the first of two experiments; and 10 students attending the same…

Career opportunities for those seeking school principalships should be available if predictions are correct, yet many inexperienced principals will fail when confronted by the first challenges inherent in a position of educational leadership. This study reviews some of the major problems and issues that appear to be characteristics of the…

Research was performed in lower grade technical schools in the Netherlands to study complex psychomotor tasks requiring integration of several task-dependent skills. In two studies, students were observed performing metal work. They were assigned to instructional conditions of high, intermediate or low structure. Students in the high-structure…

A large percentage of American youth enters the job market ill-prepared and lacking basic skills; the majority of our working population is not adequately prepared for the occupations in which they find themselves. Too many job changes, dissatisfaction, and a lack of systematic preparatory and continuing education have led to the productivity…