This paper takes the position that theories about individual differences in childhood and theories about cognitive development both would be enhanced if the two lines of research were integrated. The heuristic value of this position is illustrated in the context of analogical reasoning tasks. A general model of analogy solution and potential…

THIS RESEARCH STUDY WAS BASED ON THE ASSUMPTION THAT THE TECHNIQUE OF PSYCHOLINGUISTIC EXPERIMENTATION, AS WELL AS FORMAL ANALYSIS, CAN BE APPLIED TO DISCOVER SOME VARIABLES WHICH ALLOW THE HUMAN TO RESOLVE AMBIGUOUS SENTENCES. THE PROBLEM OF AMBIGUITY WAS CONFINED TO SITUATIONS IN WHICH A KEY PRONOUN IN A SENTENCE HAS MORE THAN ONE POSSIBLE…

Reading lessons were observed, taped, and analyzed to determine how teachers' questioning strategies contribute to students' ability to comprehend materials read. The kinds of thinking elicited by teachers' questions were investigated by means of a classification scheme developed which included recognition, recall, translation, conjecture,…

The report describes a new kind of psychological testing machine, the Logical Analysis Device (LAD), and the attempts to use it for predicting academic grades of 97 freshmen engineering students at The Cooper Union in 1958, 77 of whom were re-tested in 1962. The LAD system allows a subject to proceed in his own way and at his own pace to solve…

A theory of the nature of mental abilities is presented. In this theory, mental abilities are hierarchically organized into four progressively deeper levels--the levels of composite tasks, subtasks, information-processing components, and information-processing metacomponents. Composite tasks can be decomposed into subtasks, subtasks into…

This theoretical paper reevaluates the Piagetian tradition in the study of propositional reasoning. Piaget's assertion that children's logic, prior to the stage of formal operations, is structurally adequate for dealing with objects and their properties, but is inadequate for fully competent propositional reasoning, is challenged on three grounds:…

This paper argues in favor of using interactional strategies in the study of formal operations reasoning. Interactional designs allow a convergent approach to specifying processes underlying the interaction of variables. In contrast, current methodologies contain two inherent disadvantages: they have limited utility in specifying the processes…

Several studies have shown that the elderly do not perform well on the Piagetian problems of logical thinking; the present set of studies aimed at demonstrating that the elderly maintain the competence to solve such problems. The first study performed by the authors assessed performance of 60 noninstitutionalized middle-class elderly females on…

A theory of Socratic tutoring was developed in the form of pattern-action rules for a computer program. The rules were derived from analyses of a variety of tutorial dialogs. The 23 rules were designed to formalize causal knowledge and reasoning, and they included such abilities as forming hypotheses, distinguishing between necessary and…

The Test of Logical Thinking (TOLT) is a written test of cognitive development constructed to be logically equivalent to specific Piagetian tasks. It consists of 36 open-ended items administered in a one-to-one situation. Subjects were middle to upper class, predominantly white elementary school students. The 168 students were randomly drawn from…

Ninety students in an introductory chemistry class were divided into three groups to test the power of algorithms to increase logical thinking abilities. The experimental group received approximately 10 hours of laboratory instruction based on the use of procedural algorithms. Experiment and control groups were tested for logical thinking…

The concept of an algorithm derives from the physical sciences, but it has often been misunderstood and misapplied in the social sciences and in education. The theoretical and practical significance of algorithms stems from their applicability to problems of learning, instruction, and instructional design, and they may potentially provide the…

A preschool curriculum for lower class children was developed based on Piaget's theory. Evaluation procedures were developed to parallel a Piagetian curriculum. According to Piagetian theory, the mechanism of classification is the coordination of the intensive and extensive properties of a group of objects. The ability to dichotomously classify…

Boys (n=800) between the ages of seven and twelve were administered 35 problems for three successive years. Each problem was characterized according to its logical structure and language which corresponded to a pictorial presentation, its ordinary verbal language, and its abstract symbols. Each structure was presented in each of the three…

This discussion of transitive inferences (if A greater than B & B greater than C, then A greater thean C) emphasizes an information processing analysis of logical thought. The two basic factors considered in such an analysis are (1) the task environment, including its structure, demands, decisions required, and information given; and (2) the…