This article seeks to provide researchers and practitioners in laboratory education, particularly those involved in the curriculum design and implementation of teaching laboratories at university level, with a conceptual framework and a working model for an integrated assessment of learning domains, by attending to a more holistic approach to…

Organic chemistry education is one of the youngest research areas among all chemistry related research efforts, and its published scholarly work has become vibrant and diverse over the last 15 years. Research on problem-solving behavior, students' use of the arrow-pushing formalism, the investigation of students' conceptual knowledge and…

Research in the psychology of mathematics education has been confronted with the fact that people blatantly fail to solve tasks they are supposed to be able to solve correctly given their available domain-specific knowledge and skills. Also researchers in cognitive psychology have encountered such phenomena. In this paper, theories that have been…

Proper Names appear at the heart of several debates in philosophy and the cognitive sciences. These include "reference", "intentionality", and the nature of "belief" as well as "language acquisition", "cognitive development", and "memory". This dissertation follows a cognitive approach to the philosophical problems posed by proper names. It puts…

Drawing on data from a US study of nine mentors and mentees, including mentee scores on the Reasoning about Current Issues (RCI) Test, which offers a measure of cognitive complexity, the authors explore how differences in cognitive complexity were related to role expectations, conceptions of teaching problems, and the use of evidence for…

Reviews two books, the first of which explores how children conceive possible ways to solve problems and differentiate among real, possible, and necessary solutions. The second book explains the construction of knowledge as a dialectical tension of the opening of new possibilities constrained by increasingly stronger necessities from which a…

Proposes a three-level model of cognitive processing to account for complex monitoring when individuals are faced with ill-structured problems (i.e., problems on which opposing or contradictory evidence and opinion exists). (Author/RH)

Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development described what children are capable of doing at each stage of development; new research focuses on actual use of these capabilities. (Author/MLF)

Argues that high school physics should be grounded in motivating contextual activities and connected to a philosophically and historically valid theoretical structure. Explains the large context problem approach and its effect on generating questions and problems. (DDR)

Examines and comments on Logo's educational rationale in light of Piagetian theory and recent studies in information-processing psychology. Two educational problems from which Logo theory has been derived and Logo's responses to these problems are discussed. (MBR)

A technique to teach cognitive skills to directly facilitate abstract and rational thinking is described. Based on George Kelly's theory of personal constructs, his Role Construct Repertory Test has students construe similarities and differences among important course concepts rather than provide individual definitions or examples of those…

A review of recent curricular research presents studies in the areas of: (1) psychological and epistemological foundations; (2) new developments (content of instruction, cognitive processing, and methodological re-direction); and (3) exemplary research programs on teacher behavior, pupils' prior conceptions in learning, and probelm solving. (CJ)

Written for curriculum developers and vocational education instructors, this publication provides an understanding of cognitive concepts and methods using an information processing paradigm and shows how to apply this knowledge in development of curriculum and instructional plans. Chapter 1 reviews needs and characteristics of vocational education…

Observes 75 first- and third-grade children in their classroom mathematics seatwork to test assumptions drawn from Vygotsky's theory about the development of private speech and its relationship to task performance, attention, and motor behaviors accompanying task orientation. (HOD)

Cognitive theories of problem solving and cognitive psychologists' suggestions for teaching problem solving are reviewed. Theories and suggestions from creativity research are also considered. How high proficiency levels in problem solving are acquired and how best to teach problem-solving skills (for both well- and ill-structured problems) are…