Recent efforts have been made to develop more age-appropriate intelligence measures for the elderly to determine the nature of age differences and changes in adult cognitive development. Spatial and reasoning performances of young, young-old and old-old individuals were compared on traditional versus familiar and presumably more meaningful…

The study involving approximately 300 deaf students entering the National Technical Institute for the Deaf was designed to determine the extent to which four cognitive measures could be reduced in overall length without serious threat of information loss. The measures investigated were the California Reading Comprehension Test, the Mathematical…

This document contains five symposium papers exploring sex differences in cognition. The first paper defines the purposes of the study, i.e., to examine which cognitive performance factors are related to sex differences, and to investigate possible biological, social, and psychological factors affecting developmental sex differences. The second…

The role of verbalization in children's mental operations was studied by comparing the mental operations children used in spatial perspective tasks (indicating another's view) and rotation tasks (imagining an object's rotation and one's own subsequent view). Each of 96 children (equal numbers of boys and girls, kindergarten and second grade…

Reports on a study which examined the relationship between spatial ability and performance in organic chemistry. Results indicated that students with high spatial scores did significantly better on questions requiring problem solving skills, as well as on those requiring the mental manipulation of two-dimensional representations of a molecule. (TW)

Discusses the gender differences revealed on the science content items of the National Assessment of Educational Progress Science Assessment. Examines explanations for the differences, including differential prior instruction, differential response to uncertainty, differential response to figurally presented items, and different attitudes toward…

Sample materials from a primary training packet are included. The packets were developed as a part of a teacher development program aimed at improving elementary mathematics by giving teachers practical ideas. The sample student materials are drawn from the areas of geometry and oral mathematics. (PK)

Using 146 high school students, this research assessed the effects of aptitude, strategy training, and item characteristics on the strategic processes employed in the performance of spatial visualization tasks. Treatment effects were shown to depend on the subject's aptitude profile and on the characteristics of items. (BS)

This study of individual differences in performance of a geometric analogies task included four-alternative test items and studied eye movements and confidence judgments as well as latency and error. Results were interpreted using two hypothesized performance strategies: constructive matching and response elimination. (Author/BW)

Examined the relationship of attitude toward science, spatial ability, mathematical ability, and scientific personality (measured by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator) on the achievement of eighth-grade students (N=98). One finding noted is that males and females with science grades of C or D had the most characteristics not associated with science.…

Investigates the role of cognitive style in the ability of first-, third-, and fifth-graders to represent the horizontal coordinate. Students were observed on a portable rod-and-frame test of field dependence/independence and on water bottle and crossbar measures of horizontality representation. (Author/RH)

This original comparative study explores two central questions in the study of first language acquisition: What is the relative impact of structural and functional determinants? What is universal versus language-specific during development? The study addresses these questions in three domains of child language: reference to entities, the…

Zoo Zillions contains five activities for grades K-2: Annie's Jungle Trail, 3D Gallery, Number Line Express, Gnu Ewe Boutique, and Fish Stories. These activities enable children to review and practice basic mathematics skills; identify three-dimensional shapes, watch them in motion, and create their own three-dimensional designs; locate numbers…

Space orientation is a major area of development for preschool and early primary school children. Knowledge about one's own body and about body movements in space is a necessary condition for space orientation. Starting from their own bodies, children learn to focus on the space in which they move. They then learn to take a non-body perspective…

This study investigated the effects of audio, animation, and spatial ability in a computer-based instructional program for biology. The program presented instructional material via test or audio with lean text and included eight instructional sequences presented either via static illustrations or animations. High school students enrolled in a…