Twenty children, 22 to 49 months old, were given a free choice of becoming involved in one of four activity settings characterized as being familiar or novel and active or passive. Children preferred novel activities to familiar ones, while activity level depended on situational familiarity. (BD)

Examines factors to be considered before deciding what type of instructional control is desired in computer-assisted instruction and presents guidelines for determining locus of instructional control. Guidelines relate to learner age and ability, learning task, use of coaching procedures, inclusion of structural guidance, and procedures for…

Students must be given a cognitive base and have a certain degree of familiarity with a design element in order to cope with materials during the creative process. During a recent outdoor education experience, art teachers found such concerns were minimized in terms of an art program. (Author/RK)

In 1986, the International Board of Standards for Training, Performance, and Instruction (IBSTPI) published the first edition of "Instructional Design [ID] Competencies: The Standards." It was the culmination of work that began in 1978. In this third edition, IBSTPI presents its latest view of the competencies of instructional designers. It is a…

This book describes a project on designing spaces for young children; the aim of the project is to enable a "meeting of minds" between the pedagogical philosophy of Reggio Emilia preschools and the innovative experiences within the culture of design and architecture. The book presents the project in three main sections: (1) a critical analysis of…

The rapid changes in the field of technology are redefining the process of developing technology-enhanced educational materials as well as the roles of developers involved in the process.The purpose of this study was to learn from practitioners the roles and responsibilities of an instructional designer in developing new media enhanced…

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships between cultural differences and the design of personal Web pages. The research questions were: (1) What differences can be detected between how American and Chinese students employ symbol systems in their personal Web pages? (2) What differences can be detected between American and…

The design of systems, including digital libraries, is often inspired by what technology makes possible. In user-centered design, design emphasizes users, their tasks and needs. The majority of current digital libraries are not designed for children. For digital libraries to be popular with children, they need to be fun and easy-to-use. This paper…

This paper presents an academic World Wide Web authoring tool called AutoHTML. This tool, a work in progress, is designed to allow the novice user the ability to construct high level Web pages with a consistent look and feel. The system works with a standard Web browser without the addition of component plug-ins. Additional HTML meta-tags are…

Investigated effects of dimensional dominance of stimuli and subject's ages in initial and shift learning of discrimination tasks. (DP)

Uni- and multidimensional processing of 6- to 9-year olds was studied using recall tasks in which an array of stimuli was reconstructed to match a model array. Results indicated that both age groups were able to solve multidimensional problems, but that solution rate was retarded by the unidimensional processing of highly salient dimensions.…

Results showed that reversal shift was easier than extradimensional shift and that relative shift difficulty was unaffected by instructions, in contrast to findings with college-age subjects. (Authors)

It was concluded that the scaled preference values have high face validity and that they suggest the need for reexamination of some previous experimental results. (Author)

Describes the scope, objectives, and status of a study of user responses to public online catalogs conducted in 1982 with Council on Library Resources (CLR) funding. The framework for evaluating the user-catalog interface, data collection, and questionnaire content are discussed, and a copy of the survey questionnaire is appended. (Author/JL)