A study was conducted to determine if the observed changes in Head Start children were related to the practice effects inherent in a test-retest situation. The "control" group consisted of 64 children who had been eligible for a Head Start program. They roughly matched a group of Head Start (HS) children in IQ scores, age, and…

According to Cronbach's method of data analysis--which decomposes individual scores into separate components for different levels of aggregation--data collected for an investigation of the development of individual differences in ability test scores from grade 4 through grade 9 were grouped into school district, class, and individual components.…

This report discusses the relationship between bilingualism and mental development of bilingual children. After a review of the relevant literature, a specific study is described. The linguistic background of 648 children from 29 schools, age 10 through 12 inclusive, was measured with the Welsh Linguistic Background Scale. General intelligence was…

This study investigates the preference and ability components of cognitive style as measured by a verbal test for fifth-grade children. Performances from an intellectual ability test, a pictorial cognitive style test, and school achievement tests were included as construct validity variables. The results supported conclusions drawn by Robinson and…

In order to directly relate research on children's thinking to curriculum development in the social studies, this study approximates the conditions and substances of daily classroom life and examines the levels of abstraction in children's thinking about complex social problems. The subjects include 210 boys and girls in equal numbers in grades…

A study was designed to test the expectation that different individuals have different cognitive styles, which, if true, may be useful in investigating characteristics and psychological impacts of media utilization. Cognitive style refers to an individual's way of acquiring and processing information. Characteristics of the visual type and haptic…

The purpose of this study is to determine whether the teaching of cognitive knowledge affects attitudes dealing with race, social class, caste, and religious and ethnic groups. Treatment consisted of teaching an anthropological-sociological unit, Man and Myth: A Unit in Ethnic Relations, which presents knowledge generated by research in the…

This publication contains two separate reports. Part I, the report of the Anthropology Curriculum Study Project (ACSP), is an accounting of the time, money, and human endeavor involved in curriculum development efforts toward a course in anthropology for the high school curriculum. The document includes four reports of ACSP staff members and nine…

The purpose of this project was to administer the Motor Encoding Subtest of the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities (IPTA) to a population of 50 American Indian students, and compare their scores with the established norms of the ITPA. Indian students with chronological ages 5-9 enrolled in the first 4 grades at the Fort Thompson…

Increased student demand for foundations courses, coupled with a lack of qualified staff, made it necessary to provide workable alternatives to traditional instruction. Substantial adjustments could not be made until the efficacy of the new methods could be documented. The study compared cognitive and attitudinal outcomes of two types of classes,…

Two experiments to develop psychometric and administrative data on instruments designated for a testing program with disadvantaged elementary school children were undertaken. These instruments provide measures of growth and development in such diverse areas as verbal expressiveness (the ITPA and the Hertzig/Birch scoring of the PSI), problem…

The report describes the organization and implementation of an evaluation of the Rose Tree Media Social Studies Curriculum. A questionnaire designed to gather teachers' assessment required response to twelve sets of statements reflecting sound curriculum procedures. Teams of teachers constructed tests summarizing the curriculum of each year…

Experimental results indicate that: (1) the Teaching Situation Reaction Test has potential for predicting inservice social studies teachers' verbal and cognitive classroom behavior patterns; and (2) these patterns are related to current developments in social studies instruction. (MS)

Three articles describe a series of observations and experiments that examined the user context of questions in information retrieval, the structure and classification of questions, cognitive traits and decision-making searchers, and different searches of the same question. (71 references) (Author/CLB)

Describes a study in Nigeria comparing achievement in biology with a student's preference for cooperative or competitive learning situations. Proposes that rural children prefer cooperative learning strategies while urban children prefer competitive ones. Presents data proposing that learning preference (cooperative vs competitive) directly…