The problem of how people process novel and unexpected information--"deep learning" (Ohlsson in "Deep learning: how the mind overrides experience." Cambridge University Press, New York, 2011)--is central to several fields of research, including creativity, belief revision, and conceptual change. Researchers have not converged…

This article responds to an article by A. Gupta, D. Hammer, and E. F. Redish (2010) that asserts that M. T. H. Chi's (1992, 2005) hypothesis of an "ontological commitment" in conceptual development is fundamentally flawed. In this article, I argue that Chi's theoretical perspective is still very much intact and that the critique offered by Gupta…

This article presents what is possibly the first English translation of a 1930 manuscript related to Vygotsky's work (probably written by Vygotsky himself). This manuscript, the Zalkind Summary, is a five-point summary of his presentation to the First All-Union Congress on the Study of Human Behaviour in Leningrad in January 1930. This article…

We applied a mixed-method research design to investigate the patterns of reasoning used by novice undergraduate chemistry students to classify chemical substances as elements, compounds, or mixtures based on their particulate representations. We were interested in the identification of the representational features that students use to build a…

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have experienced increasing pressures to provide accountability data and consumer information on the quality of teaching and learning. Existing ratings and rankings of HEIs tend to neglect information on student learning outcomes. Instead, they focus on inputs, activities and research outputs, such as resources…

A series of experiments investigating the processing of artificial set inclusion relations supports the view that many college students have the appropriate schema for processing inclusion relations, although it has not been elicited in previous artificial set-inclusion studies. (Author/PN)

This study highlights some theoretical ideas which should be considered in attempting to assess the degree of abstraction underlying conceptual learning. (Author/RK)

An open-category task was administered to 180 elementary students. Three modes of response (related to the ways students acquire attributes for objects) were used to score the tasks. Qualitative changes in the three modes were analyzed, and the results supported a qualitative change in the modes of response. (Author/GDC)

Two techniques compose a new methodology for studying certain classes of qualitative information: the F-sort task for data collection and latent partition analysis for data summarization. A detailed presentation is given of its application to a study of teacher's views of facilitating student learning in the classroom. (Author/LMO)

Demonstrates the usefulness of the inclusion paradigm as a methodological tool in providing information about the conceptual breadth of selected social and nonsocial superordinate categories in children who exhibit some degree of inclusion logic. (HOD)

Summarizes findings on infants' capacity for object segregation. Maintains that infants can use featural and experiential information for segregation and individuation purposes long before 12 months of age. Disputes the claim that formation of object categories awaits early word learning, but acknowledges that language may play a key role in…

Suggesting concrete operational procedures to stimulate discussion re: Objective B of the S-120 Regional Project (rural development), this paper focuses on key conceptual problems raised in a previous paper. The problem of cognitions or subjective worlds of actors is addressed in terms of Blumer's six features of public opinion; then, the…

Piaget, in describing the sequence of classificatory development, describes class inclusion as composed of two processes; hierarchical classification and post-whole comparisons. In the experiment reported here, elementary school children, trained in the concept of sets in first grade mathematics were given a task where they were required to assess…