Noting that reasonableness is not to be equated with rationality but is a form of rationality, this book explores ways in which educators can help children develop the capacity to be reasonable within the context of moral development. In Chapter 1, "Reasonable Children," the concept "reasonableness" is defined in the context of…

This document is a comparative report based on data that enables a different form of comparison to be made between Japanese and American eighth-graders. The data is drawn from assessments given in each country using tests developed via governmental agencies that were designed to mirror the basic curricula currently being offered to students in the…

This study investigated the effectiveness of a schema strategy on the addition and subtraction word problem solving performance of four sixth and seventh grade students with learning disabilities. Students were taught to map features of the word problem onto problem schemata diagrams, first for one-step problems and then for two-step problems. A…

This study focused on the relationship between high school students' course-taking patterns and their achievement of higher-order thinking skills. PLAN scores (in grade 10) and ACT Assessment scores (in grades 11 or 12) were collected for 73,818 students in 1,174 high schools. The findings show that, in a typical high school, eleventh- and…

Authentic evaluation of educational achievement directly measures actual performance in the subject area. Standardized multiple-choice tests, on the other hand, measure test-taking skills directly, and everything else indirectly or not at all. Also called performance assessment, appropriate assessment, alternative assessment, or direct assessment,…

Part of a larger research project, this descriptive study identified the range and characteristics of learning strategies used in studying foreign languages. Related studies include a course development study, in which foreign language instructors teach their students to apply learning strategies, and a longitudinal study that analyzed differences…

The papers in this volume begin with an editorial by Patricia L. Stuhr, "The Changing Faces of the Arts and Learning Research SIG and Its Journal". It is followed by 11 articles: (1) "Novice-Expert Differences in Understanding and Misunderstanding Art and Their Implications for Student Assessment in Art Education" (Judith Smith…

Issues in the development of assessments of higher order thinking skills for college graduates are discussed in the order in which they were presented when this series of papers was commissioned. With regard to Issue 1, it is generally agreed that the development of these skills is a desirable goal, but there is little consensus on how they should…

Traditional methods for task analysis have been largely based on the Instructional Systems Development (ISD) model, which is widely used throughout industry and the military. The first part of this document gives an overview of cognitive task analysis, which is conducted within the first phase of ISD. The following steps of cognitive task analysis…

Fifty-three secondary educators in six Alaskan school districts participated in a Carl Perkins grant project to integrate academic and vocational education and thinking skills. The first year of the project combined onsite and distance delivered instruction on the development of interdisciplinary units and integration models. An electronic college…

A study examined how students make specific inferences from prose passages. Subjects, 44 first- and second-year college students and 40 seventh-grade students, read 3 prose passages, each containing 6 inferential questions. The premise information for each question was expressed in one of six deductive inference forms: transitive, exclusive…

The papers selected for this report of a conference on foreign language teaching with a view to "internationalizing the future" cover a wide range of topics and levels of study, including teaching Latin, using contemporary popular music in the curriculum, negotiating oral tasks, incorporating higher-order thinking skills into the…

This study considers the effects of course types on reading, mathematics, and critical thinking skill gains for college freshmen. Course groups, arranged hierarchically in three tiers from large groupings down to individual courses, are used as units for analysis. Both Hard Applied and Hard Pure Biglan-paradigm course groups contributed to…

As part of a longitudinal examination of the New Zealand junior school (which provides the first 3 years of schooling to New Zealand pupils), a study of organizational patterns in a random selection of schools and of children's school experiences was conducted. Class activities in a sample of junior school classrooms located in seven state…

Several trends are significantly affecting the early childhood education field, with the major accomplishment of crystallizing the scope of early childhood education as birth through 8 years of age. These trends and innovations include the following: (1) restructuring early childhood education programs, by introducing formal schooling,…