Described is a third-grade science unit using feathers. Children use the feathers to learn about measurement, observation, and inference. Procedures and results are discussed. (CW)

Questions whether a writing classroom which deals with enthymemes (arguments in which underlying premises or assumptions are unexpressed) reproduces patriarchal social relations, providing men with greater opportunities for success. Concludes that using enthymemes to structure writing classes can illuminate the complex relation of discourse to…

The study compared effects of two ways of making text more explicit for learning disabled (LD) children: by adding supportive information or asking inference questions at the ends of episodes. Adding elaborative content enhanced story understanding while asking inference questions was not more effective than the explicit version of the text alone.…

Outlines the procedure for "Comprehension Court," a discussion model for building inferential skills and strategies at the elementary level. Provides a sample "Comprehension Court Evidence Sheet." (MM)

A cued recall study and a semantic verification study with individuals with mental retardation (n=93) found that increasing the degree to which the words in sentences were semantically related increased subjects' ability to utilize contextual information in sentences to essentially normal levels. (Author/DB)

A constructionist theory is described that accounts for the knowledge-based inferences that are constructed when readers comprehend narrative text. Distinctive assumptions of the constructionist theory embrace a principle of search (or effort) after meaning. Literature in support of the theory is reviewed. (SLD)

Relationships among low-level reading skills, sentence verification, and error detection were studied using 91 fourth graders. Error detection was best predicted by subjects' tendency to generate inferences while reading. Literal text comprehension depended on low-level reading; strategic reading competence reflected a tendency to go beyond…

Changes in children's understanding of experimentation are examined. Sixteen fifth and sixth graders worked on two experimentation problems consistent with an engineering and science model, respectively. The science model was associated with broader exploration, more selectiveness about evidence interpreted, and greater attention to establishing…

Examines the use of prediction during the silent reading of short stories with surprise endings. Investigates the effects of instructional setting and content familiarity upon overall reading comprehension, literal comprehension, inferential comprehension, and interest. Finds that both inferential comprehension and interest were negatively…

Examines some of the sources of bias that enter into counselors' formulations of causal hypotheses and client problem representations. Presents a study of the think-aloud protocols of 32 counseling psychologists as they examined the file of a clinically diagnosable individual, and explores the implications of the findings for the training of…

In a study of the relationship between moral reasoning and teenage drug use, problems arose in an attempt to reduce qualitative data to a quantitative format: (1) making analytic sense of singular and universal responses; (2) the mistaken logical inference that each pattern of judgment should have behavioral indicators; and (3) construction and…

Five experiments involving a total of 268 college students indicate that people are especially likely to overinfer quantity or probability from numerosity when they are asked to make inherently difficult judgments, when they are asked to render judgments while performing a concurrent task, and when they are forced to make rapid judgments. (SLD)

A study investigated whether 20 individuals (ages 9 to 19) with mental retardation would use "common ground" (i.e., physical copresence, linguistic copresence, and community membership) to resolve verbal referential ambiguity. Both participants and matched-mental-age controls used all sources of common ground, but were less successful in using…

The causal network model of P. Van den Broeck and T. Trabasso (1986) was used to analyze the inferencing processes induced from verbal protocols from reading and thinking-aloud tasks. Results from 66 Dutch 10- and 11-year olds show no correlation between reading and think-aloud performance and comprehensive scores of a closed comprehension test.…

Compares the inference and backtracking approaches to solving logic puzzles in computer environments. (Author/ASK)