One of the overarching goals of education is the development of intellectual abilities (IA). Yet, there are not enough tools to identify pedagogies that maximize students' IA. In this research, we consider the way teachers' reinforcing of versatility of opinions (pluralism) vs. teachers encouraging community views (communalism) has on developing…

Analogies are parts of human thought. From them, we can acquire new knowledge or change that which already exists in our cognitive structure. In this sense, understanding the analogical reasoning process becomes an essential condition to understand how we learn. Despite the importance of such an understanding, there is no general agreement in…

This study investigated the relationship among 68 high school students' scientific epistemological beliefs (SEBs), cognitive structures regarding nuclear power usage, and their informal reasoning regarding this issue. Moreover, the ability of students' SEBs as well as their cognitive structures for predicting their informal reasoning regarding…

This article explores theoretical and methodological issues associated with task-based interviews conducted with pairs of children. We explore different approaches to interviews from sociological, psychological and subject-based perspectives. Our interviews, concerning mathematical questions and carried out with pairs of 10 and 11-year-olds, are…

Interviews with 72 mixed ability students, aged 7 to 12, about arithmetic problem-solving strategies, indicated that the preference between procedural and deductive strategies becomes a divergent reality across ability levels. Among the conclusions is that more able children tend to be doing a qualitatively different sort of mathematics than their…

Written descriptions by students in grades 3-7 (n=274) of common 2-dimensional geometric shapes were examined to compare the level descriptors of the van Hiele Theory and the SOLO Taxonomy. Results indicate that descriptors associated with the SOLO Taxonomy more accurately describe the quality of student thinking. (MDH)

This study explored the possibility of developing classroom strategies that would encourage physics teachers to put greater focus on a more qualitative, metacognitive approach to problem solving. The empirical part of this research was carried out with students approximately 16 years of age in physics (i.e., introductory Newtorian mechanics)…

Two naturalistic research studies observed 45 eleventh grade students carrying out research paper assignments, and a third such study focused on 26 third grade students. The studies took place in Alberta (Canada) in 1993, Texas in 1996, and Washington state in 1999. From data analyzed in the interviews and written documents, the initial findings…