Presents a conservative approach to critical thinking instruction, which involves introducing a few tools, reinforcing them, and applying them to mastery of a specific course content. Uses the technique of visualization as an example, exploring ways of teaching students to use the technique and ways of assessing it. (MAB)

Describes characteristics of critical thinking and the relationship of critical thinking skills to a disposition toward critical thought. Reviews the California Critical Thinking Disposition Inventory, a research instrument designed to measure several elements of student critical thinking skills. Highlights findings from a study of college…

Argues that the meaning of the words of a language other than one's mother tongue lies neither in text nor picture but in the explanations provided to learners during acquisition of the language. Suggests that what is important in developing critical thinking in a second language is that concepts are supported with relevant discussions and…

Two experiments examined the development of recall organization by observing use of categorical and spatial clustering strategies and how encoding experiences and recall task influence degree of organization. Children and adults recalled furniture from their home. Older subjects organized items spatially; when recalling objects and their…

This study compared the regulation of cognitive activity in 30 children (ages 15 to 95 months) with autism or mental retardation matched for global, verbal, and nonverbal developmental ages. Testing on tasks of object permanence indicated that the autistic children had a pervasive difficulty in maintenance set, made more perseverative errors, and…

A comparison of the physics concepts explanations of ninth graders and of physics graduates and graduate students found that physics novices were strongly inclined to conceptualize physics concepts as material substances, whereas experts' protocols revealed distinctly nonmaterialistic representations. (MDM)

Describes a quantitative assessment project for mathematics at the university level, its findings, and its impact. Includes two roles for the mathematics department, departmental needs and student capabilities revealed by assessment, three levels of quantitative expectations, and patterns of student performance on quantitative tasks. (MKR)

Presents 10 creative, informal, intuitive geometry activities that stress higher-order thinking. (MKR)

Measured children's (n=182) competence at syllogistic reasoning and in solving a series of problems requiring inductive reasoning. Reports that syllogistic reasoning and inductive reasoning were significantly correlated with both simultaneous and successive synthesis. Provides a basis for understanding the roles of spatial and verbal-logical…

Student understanding of 30 nontechnical words used in science was investigated. No significant differences were found between the understanding of nontechnical words in science or between the verbal reasoning ability of males (n=108) and females (n=89). Of the four different question formats, students had the most difficulty with the synonym…

Presents a checklist of core behaviors for use in assessing students' strengths, weaknesses, and changes in thinking skills. Lists persistence, decreased impulsivity, flexibility, metacognition, checking for accuracy, problem posing, drawing on past knowledge and experience, transfer of skills to new situations, precision of language, and…

Summarizes researchers' beliefs about cognitive development. Topics include (1) the child as constructive thinker; (2) new research methods; (3) the characterization of children's cognitive development; (4) estimates of children's competence; (5) stages of development; (6) interrelations among developmental skills; (7) mechanisms of development;…

Four experiments determined that kindergartners' and second graders' inductions are sensitive to the similarity between premise and conclusion categories. Second graders' inductions are sensitive to the similarity of a premise category to a higher order category that includes the premise and conclusion categories. (BC)

Elementary teachers offer their ideas for enhancing the final days of school. They help students review material, highlight achievements, fill spare time, and create summer plans. Suggestions include making class diplomas, producing action news, making friendship trees, writing letters to their future selves, and preparing summer activity guides.…

The explicit, experimental introduction of a series of logical inconsistencies is described and recommended as a means of disrupting the faulty logic and, thereby, enhancing the use of more appropriate probabilistic reasoning by graduate students enrolled in an introductory inferential statistics course. (14 references) (JJK)