The article describes Project Intelligence, a three-year effort to teach thinking skills to seventh graders in Venezuela. The project's development is reviewed, a sample lesson is presented, and evaluation results for 460 students are reported. The importance of teacher competence and enthusiasm are also discussed. (DB)

Examines the relation between children's (1) probability learning performance and a measure of their memory for items presented in a sequence and (2) probability learning and performance on a test of abstractive integration. Participating were 80 six- and seven-year-old boys and girls from both low and middle socioeconomic classes. (Author/RH)

All instruction, including social studies, should be concerned with developing both halves of the brain rather than continuing to place emphasis only on those functions which reside in the left cerebral hemisphere. When presented with a social studies problem, students can view it in two ways--logically and intuitively. (RM)

This operational theory of adult learning is based on the premise that learning is a problem-solving process involving attention, differentiation, structuring, integration, abstracting, and generalization. (Journal availability: Department of Adult Education, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS 66506.) (SK)

Describes the mathematical processes that occur during problem solving, reasoning, and communication. Provides examples from mathematics education research with preschoolers. (ASK)

This article describes the rich thinking that can go into solving a difficult equation. The authors also give some sources for challenging mathematical problems.

One possible approach students can cope with abstract algebra concepts is reducing abstraction. This notion occurs when learners are unable to adopt mental strategies as they deal with abstraction level of a given task. To make these concepts mentally accessible for themselves, learners unconsciously reduce the level of the abstraction of the…

Abstraction is a major concept in computer science and serves as a powerful tool in software development. Pattern-oriented instruction (POI) is a pedagogical approach that incorporates patterns in an introductory computer science course in order to structure the learning of algorithmic problem solving. This paper examines abstraction processes in…

The effect of using either abstract or concrete words on verbal problem solving was examined in this study. Twelve undergraduate students in each of two conditions mentally solved identically structured problems by reordering and chaining together previously memorized pairs of words. Subjects who received concrete words both memorized the word…

This study examined whether familiarity with content influences performance on conditional reasoning problems of the form P implies Q independently of ease of generation of specific examples of "Q and not-P." Results indicated that increased content familiarity resulted in higher performance levels. (Author/JAZ)

This paper presents a developmental model of students' acquisition of competence in quantitative and algebraic problem solving. A key notion underlying the developmental model is a distinction between grounded and abstract representations. Grounded representations, like story problems, are more concrete and familiar, closer to physical objects and…

Experiment to determine whether the use of realistic materials would improve performance in a deceptive reasoning problem. (Authors)

Investigates the asserted differences in reasoning between adults and second, fourth, and sixth graders in a manipulation of variables task using class inclusion and story problems with common everyday situations. Results are discussed in terms of sensible reasoning and problem-solving skills. (CM)

Results suggested that, when encountering difficulties in the problem-solving situations on the test, the retarded Ss tended to take the easiest or shortest path to a response by scanning a minimum amount of material. (Author/DLS)

Results showed that only 32 percent of adult female shoppers in a supermarket were able to use a proportional reasoning strategy to determine which of two sizes of a common item (size ratio 2:3) was the better buy. Performance declined when the ratio was more complex. (JMB)