A SERIES OF RESEARCH PROGRAMS CONCERNED WITH THE EFFECTS OF SYSTEMATIC VARIATIONS OF CERTAIN CONDITIONS RELATED TO LEARNING HAS BEEN CONDUCTED. PROJECTS PREVIOUSLY REPORTED INCLUDED TWO INVESTIGATIONS OF REINFORCEMENT AND SUBJECT VARIABLES AND ONE ON THE STUDY OF PRACTICE AND SUBJECT VARIABLES. THE NATURE OF THE OVERALL PROGRAM WAS DISCUSSED IN…

The concept of an algorithm derives from the physical sciences, but it has often been misunderstood and misapplied in the social sciences and in education. The theoretical and practical significance of algorithms stems from their applicability to problems of learning, instruction, and instructional design, and they may potentially provide the…

This experiment studied the extent to which training of two behaviors affects subjective response uncertainity and information seeking. The two behaviors were cue attendance, i.e., analyzing a complex stimulus and identifying its discrete components, and hypotheses generation, i.e., the generation of numerous alternative hypothetical explanations…

A series of exploratory studies and three experiments dealing with conceptual rule learning are reported in this paper. Discussants related the results to subject matter fields and to educational research and development. Four groups of subjects, five to twelve years old, solved six rule learning problems. It was concluded that younger children…

Learning sets programs were administered to preschool deaf children from a variety of representative educational programs throughout the southwest to improve their visual perception skills. The concept of learning sets was described as progression from trial-and-error learning to immediate problem solving by insight. The project consisted of six…

This report contains four papers describing research based on the view of mathematical knowledge as a hierarchy of "rules." The first paper: "The Role of Rules in Behavior" was abstracted in ED 040 036 (October 1970). The second paper: "A Theory of Mathematical Knowledge" defends the thesis that rules are the basic building blocks of mathematical…

THE STUDIES REPORTED WERE ATTEMPTS TO LEARN THE INNER ARRANGEMENT OF DOING MATHEMATICS. MATHEMATICS WAS VIEWED AS A MATTER OF SOLVING PROBLEMS BY A SEQUENCE OF STEPS PERFORMED AS AN ALGORITHM. THE PROCESSES STUDIED WERE--(1) COUNTING OR ENUMERATING SETS, (2) SIMPLIFYING COMPLEX LOGICAL STATEMENTS, (3) ADDING LARGE NUMBERS, AND (4) MULTIPLYING.…

The case for integrating the problem-solving approach to learning with traditional explanatory and demonstrative approaches, but not replacing them, when teaching biology is presented. (ND)

Considers the characteristics of large-scale spatial representations from three viewpoints and discusses a few implications of the existence of these representations for education. (Author/MLF)

Investigates the effects of an advance organizer lesson, presenting high-order science concepts and an elementary problem solving strategy for determining causal relations on children's use of operations of exclusion (as defined by Inhelder and Piaget, 1958). Results suggest that acceptable solutions to problems requiring the operations of…

According to the learned helplessness hypothesis, the learning impairment typically displayed by subjects previously given insoluble problems results from the real learning of response-outcome independence. This learning is represented as a belief in helplessness that interferes with the subsequent acquisition of adaptive responses. Two…

Research undertaken in Russia examines how elementary students in experimental and conventional classes assimilate the concept of a problem. The criterion of assimilation is defined as the pupil's application of theoretical knowledge of the problem to the solution of the problem. (Author/RM)

The most important factor influencing learning is what the learner already knows, and new material must be organized and integrated with this if effective learning and recall are to result. External factors such as repetition, contiguity, and reinforcement play a significant role for some types of learning. (Author/LBH)