Article suggests things teachers can do and guidelines they can use in order to raise the logical quality of classroom interaction and the logical quality of student abilities. (Author/MM)

The administration of a test based on Jean Piaget's method of determining logical thinking revealed that only 33 of 131 freshmen could meet the criteria for formal operations. Reviews research which indicates that logical thought can be enhanced by inquiry-oriented courses. Elementary and secondary teachers do not use inquiry teaching because…

Bacon's views of the faculties of understanding and reason are presented and explained in reference to Baconian rhetoric. Understanding, Rhetoric, Insinuative and Imaginative Reason are defined. (Author/MS)

Very often a scientist is inspired to the point of discovering previously unknown principles. This inspiration, however, would probably not come to him if he were not already knowledgeable in the context in which the discovery would have significance. (CK)

A total of 156 kindergarten children were given Piagetian conservation of inequality tasks. The results indicated that number conservation is more likely with higher interest materials, with smaller aggregate sizes, with higher socioeconomic class females, and with children who perform better on addition and subtraction tasks. (DR)

Conducted with fourth, eighth, and twelfth graders, this study was designed to extend investigation of the contradictory training paradigm of the O'Brien and Overton study (1980) to include performances with conditional syllogisms and to bring this effect to bear on the controversies of false positive and negative assessments at different ages.…

Outlines the positions of Comtean-type positivism, logical positivism, behaviorism, and empiricism. Holds that despite assertions to the contrary, educational theory, research, and practice still reflect aspects of positivist traditions. (GC)

The process of induction is formulated as a problem in detecting nonrandomness, or pattern, against a background of randomness, or noise. Experimental and philosophical approaches to human conceptions of randomness are contrasted. The relation between induction and the experience of randomness is discussed in terms of signal-detection theory.…

Children took a group test of disjunctive reasoning containing 48 inclusive and exclusive items varying in content of the premises, and affirmation or negation of the conclusion. Performance improved until seventh grade. Negative conclusions produced more correct answers. Implications were discussed in relation to cognitive developmental theory…