Major efforts are underway to identify and define a science of science education which will reverse the relationship between research and program development. This trend is toward using research on how learners grow and develop prior to program development and the organization of instructional techniques. Clear scientific explanations of how…

The purpose of this study was to document and analyze teachers' and students' activities during physics practicals in order to gain critical insights into why students did not acquire the expected practical skills and how theory and practice interacted in the context of teaching for the practical examination in physics. The study involves three…

The purpose of this study is to present information that will help educators to gain a better understanding of microcomputer capabilities and limitations and to inform them as to the role of microcomputers in the classroom. Through examination of studies and articles six topics related to computer-assisted instruction (CAI) are addressed: (1) age…

This review of research in science education consists of 432 reports published in 1985. Data sources include science education journals that regularly appear in the "Current Index to Journals in Education," reports entered into the ERIC system in "Resources in Education," and dissertations reported in "Dissertation…

The purpose of this study was to examine for the middle grades how students' cognitive reasoning level contributes to the variability of their achievement test performance. While previous investigations have indicated that measures of reasoning development are associated with measures of achievement, few such studies have attempted to control for…

Developed by early childhood educators at the classroom, system, state, and university levels and tested in six school systems, this handbook has been prepared to help kindergarten teachers in Georgia plan, implement, and evaluate their own programs. In addition to introductory material stating the philosophy of the program, principles of child…

Though most definitions of literacy focus solely on the uses of reading and writing, a sociocognitive perspective that incorporates social practices, conceptions of reading and writing, and literacy as a way of thinking is more productive. Within this view, literacy is culturally based, involves the higher intellectual skills, and is learned by…

From the approximately three dozen reports that describe the crisis in American education, the president of the Canadian Educational Researchers Association briefly describes four: "A Nation at Risk" (National Commission on Excellence in Education); "High School: A Report on Secondary Education in America" (Ernest L. Boyer);…

Science education has received increasing attention during the 1980s in both professional and public forums. This paper addresses three questions having to do with science teaching. The first question concerns student learning in science classes. The document proposes that science achievement is generally disappointing, especially if student…

It is widely believed that television viewing has a negative impact on school achievement. This belief is supported by negative statistical associations sometimes found between school achievement and amount of television viewing; that is, heavy TV viewers tend to show poorer achievement than light viewers. One possible explanation of this…

Very little research has been carried out on the extent to which educational television is recognized as part of the curriculum in nursery and infant schools and how it facilitates learning in young children. The aim of the curriculum at this level should be to offer experiences to children that, through conceptualization, will develop in them the…

This reaction paper presented at a conference on compensatory education begins with reviews of three studies prepared for the program and staffing session of the conference and dealing respectively with student-to-instructor ratios, instructional setting, and summer programs. The paper then presents the view that huge gains in achievement will not…

This collection of abstracts is part of a continuing series providing information on recent doctoral dissertations. The 19 titles deal with a variety of topics, including the following: (1) factual, elaborative, and inferential levels of text processing; (2) the effect of explicitly and implicitly presented rhetorical functions on the…

Insights gained from experience and research on language minority students' academic success are reviewed as background for presentation of a curriculum that is bilingual and content-based and uses cooperative learning techniques. First, findings on three elements of success (interest and motivation, intelligence and development, and psychosocial…

In four parts, this discussion describes characteristics of the thought of infants, preschool children, primary school students, and adolescents. Topics briefly addressed in part I, on the thought processes/capabilities of babies, concern sensorimotor thought without abstraction, the importance of physical exploration, the development of…