How do university students understand the graphs that they read in their textbooks? How does their knowledge regarding the content and their statistical training influence this understanding? Does the kind of task demand also influence this understanding? To answer these questions, we asked a group of psychology students and a group of economics…

The belief that studying mathematics improves reasoning skills, known as the Theory of Formal Discipline (TFD), has been held since the time of Plato. Research evidence supports this idea, at least in the context of students who had chosen to study post-compulsory mathematics. Here we examined the development of reasoning skills in 16- to…

A common challenge in higher education is teaching required content for which students traditionally have lower levels of interest. Physical therapist education programs experience this challenge when training entry-level students to document in the medical record. The authors compared learning outcomes among physical therapy students taught…

Over the last decade, WebQuests have grown in popularity in educational environments. In order to effectively implement a WebQuest in the classroom, best pedagogical practices must be employed; however, these best WebQuest practices should reflect the exigent 21st century skills students need to be successful, productive members of the global…

In terms of planning and achieving student learning in physical education, important variables that influence this goal include task organization, quantity and quality of practice, task structure, communication with students or feedback, appropriateness of the skills, and motivational climate. With respect to the construct of quality practice…

In the past, engineering programmes were developed with separate technical learning outcomes supplemented by generic attributes. The latter were in most cases a standalone set of attributes developed by academic institutions or professional societies overseeing engineering accreditation processes. Although the technical learning outcomes were well…

In manual assembly work, parts are often assembled by applying force with a simple tool or by hand. A worker thus needs control the force he or she applies in working, as an appropriate level of force is requisite for minimizing work failures and improving efficiency. The object of this study is to clarify the relationship between the level of…

It has been proposed that it is possible to decompose changes in variability of human motor behavior into 3 independent components: covariation, task tolerance, and stochastic noise. The authors simulate learning to throw accurately and show that for this task the proposed analysis does not give an unambiguous answer to the question of what the 3…

A comprehensive audit of the skills curriculum offered to students in a Bachelor of Laws program yielded important insights about the collective impact of assessment tasks on the hidden and operational skills curriculum. This qualitative case study supports the views (1) that assessment tasks provide significant skills practice and performance…

A reproduction of a paper first issued in 1967. Algorithms are characterized as being a special kind of problem solving procedure which can be verbalized. (Author/STS)

Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, developed a secondary school teaching program called Teaching Skill Goals (TSG) which places the responsibility for skills development with the individual. The program emphasizes identification of specific segments of the teaching act most likely to be developed by short term efforts and a process…

How task analysis--the reduction of skills needed to master a complex objective to sequential behavioral steps--can help art teachers meet the needs of handicapped learners is discussed. Rather than emphasizing activities for disabled learners, emphasis should be placed on the skills learners must master to complete the activity. (RM)

The report presents the results of the third phase of a research program to develop a behavioral taxonomy of undergraduate pilot training (UPT) tasks and skills. The third phase effort consisted of surface analyses of 50 UPT flying training tasks to generate basic task descriptions. The surface analysis subdivided and defined task elements into a…

The complexity of the optimization algorithm for staff utilization in any medium to large organization can cause major problems in meeting schedules while still keeping all of the work force in full employment, working at a level appropriate to their experience, and also giving staff an opportunity to develop new skills and experiences that will…

The author outlines the general functions, aims, teaching services, and training requirements of adult training centers for the mentally handicapped. She then describes in detail the preparation and use of a skills analysis program, including the provision of additional back-up materials. A lesson in ice cream making is the illustration.…