A study examined the ability of 16 children in kindergarten, grade 2, and grade 4 to draw inferences based on the content of a narrative passage and to recognize inferences as derived from, rather than given by, text. An inference task, developed to assess the ability to make and recognize appropriate inferences, consisted of four orally presented…

A study was conducted to investigate developmental aspects of the logical organization of reasons among 30 boys and girls from each of the first, sixth, and tenth grades. Participants were administered the Responsibility Story Test, a measure consisting of stories portraying moral dilemmas and corresponding semistructured interview schedules.…

Social studies education would benefit greatly if curriculum development was more directly linked to developmental child psychology based on Piagetian models of concrete operations. A science education program based on this model of concrete experiences is cited and positive results for both students and teachers are noted. Two social studies…

Compiled to illustrate that teachers in New York state--in all curricular areas and at all grade levels--are working to improve students' ability to think logically and creatively, this document outlines programs on thinking skills across the curriculum, from kindergarten through grade 12. The document begins with a chart listing program titles,…

When children are curious they are willing to investigate the less self-evident properties of matter. It is hoped as deeper explanations and relationships are explored, children learn analytic, critical, and creative skills for later application to phenomena encountered in life. A concern of elementary science teaching is motivating learning or…

Based on the idea that poor reading skills may be contributing to academic failure among Spanish-speaking high school students and on research suggesting that classification skills may help in reading, a set of lessons focusing on classification was developed for this group. The bilingual lessons use various classification tasks to teach students…

An analysis of informal reasoning and examination of teaching practices looks at ways to improve reasoning skills in college students. Teaching students to reason more effectively is an important but difficult goal of higher education. Reasoning consists of complex skills which must be taught. Effective instruction is based on two key features:…

While logical reasoning skills are related to success in science, the relationship between thought and formal logic is not clear. Propositional Logic Test (PLT), error patterns of students' interpretations of logical proposition, and developmental patterns of the error type are described. Examined is the relationship between logical reasoning…

Preservice elementary school teachers entering a science methods course have been found to differ widely in their command of science process skills. A study was undertaken to examine several variables suggested by the literature to be related to these skills. Forty-five preservice elementary school teachers (5 males and 40 females) were tested at…

Three research efforts that used computer-based simulations for maintenance training were in progress when this report was written: Game-Based Learning, which investigated the use of computer-based games to train electronics diagnostic skills; Human Performance in Fault Diagnosis Tasks, which evaluated the use of context-free tasks to train…

The mathematical experiences of elementary students often focus on memorizing facts and rules as opposed to making sense of the subject and developing problem solving skills. Students spend large amounts of time processing, memorizing and sorting collections of data which are tasks well performed by computer technology. To correct this situation,…

This paper describes a plan to improve school effectiveness in the Tulsa (Oklahoma) Public Schools by incorporating instruction in thinking skills. The program selected by the school district was the Strategic Reasoning Program, based on Albert Upton's Design for Thinking and J. P. Guilford's Structure of the Intellect. The Strategic Reasoning…

This paper identifies and analyzes the relationship between experiential science instruction, language arts, and cognitive development to provide information and recommendations concerning the integration of elementary science and language instruction. Annotated citations are provided grouped under the following categories: (1) recent status of…

The use of the restructured Graduate Record Examination (GRE), students' entering grade point averages (GPAs), and other variables as predictors of success in graduate school at Texas A&M University (TAMU) was studied. Comparisons were also made to a similar study (Kunze, 1974). A sample of 564 entering graduate students who had taken the…

This booklet contains proceedings of the Fourth Conference of the University/Urban Schools National Task Force. The conference was held to present information about four programs designed to help high school students to sharpen their reasoning skills. Criteria for program development state that: (1) the program can be taught to teachers in a…