This work describes a 2-year study in teaching school science, based on the stimulation of higher thinking levels in learning science using a highly student-centred and constructivist learning approach. We sought to shift and strengthen students' positive attitudes towards science learning, self-efficacy towards invention, and achievement.…

Nursery school and second grade subjects were trained on an optional shift task and results were compared with predictions derived from selective attention theory. Findings indicate that the one-look assumption does not hold and that a multiple-look theory, in which the breadth of attention varies with task demands, seems tenable. (GO)

Second and sixth grade children's relative sensitivity to acoustic, semantic, and physical dimensions was inferred from the amount of release from proactive interference obtained for shifts along each dimension. (ED)

Investigates the development of evaluative and taxonomic encoding in 7-, to 8-, and 11-year-old children's memories, and related experimental findings to recent work on the development of encoding in memory. (Author/ED)

In an attempt to examine the generalizability of the Kendler S-R mediational model of reversal-shift behavior, 60 third-grade children were classified as either verbal mediators or nonmediators on the basis of their performance on an optional-shift discrimination problem. The children's performances were then evaluated on three tasks. (Author/CS)

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effects of hypothesis testing instructions compared to brief instructions on the speed of shift problem solution of grade school age subjects, in order to provide information on the development of hypothesis testing behavior in children and the sampling characteristics of hypothesis testing in these…

Explaining new ideas to oneself can promote transfer, but how and when such self-explanation is effective is unclear. This study evaluated whether self-explanation leads to lasting improvements in transfer success and whether it is more effective in combination with direct instruction or invention. Third- through fifth-grade children (ages 8-11;…

Investigated memory span and memory scanning in both auditory and visual modalities of 24 good and poor, 10-year-old readers. The major finding was that short-term memory function deteriorated over time in the poor reading group. (Author/LLK)

A total of 128 first- and second-graders participated in two sets of shift problems: (1) four extra-dimensional shifts; and (2) shift problems with two types of cue-reinforcement conditions (same and reversal). (ED)

Liniar functions fitted to the proportion of optional reversal shifts as a function of log CA were used to assess the effect of stimulus and training variables on the development of reversal-shift. (ST)

Investigates the effects of training two components of a dimension-abstracted oddity problem, oddity responding and attention, in a series of three problems. (Author/ED)

This study attempted to compare the phoneme shifting ability of nonreading adults, and remedial elementary and good elementary students. The Phoneme Shifting Test was used to evaluate the phoneme shifting skill, specifically the shifting of the first and the last letters of words. Individual testing was done during October 1974. Phoneme shifting…

Results showed that reversal shift was easier than extradimensional shift and that relative shift difficulty was unaffected by instructions, in contrast to findings with college-age subjects. (Authors)

Major finding is that recall in the shift condition dramatically exceeded recall in the no shift condition. (Authors/MB)