Summarizes some of the major issues on which psychological theories of motivation differ, and provides a list of readings which relate to the controversy on the nature of motivation. (JR)

This document discusses how the organization of instruction influences the encoding and structuring of new material in the memory and the subsequent transfer of such information to novel situations. A theory of instruction for problem solving that considers relevant cognitive variables and that specifies the conditions for productive learning is…

Attributes learning difficulties in introductory chemistry to the thesis that many students have not reached the formal operations level of intellectual development. Cites instances to support this thesis, outlines an instructional procedure to overcome the difficulty, and presents a list of competencies that can be expected of these students. (GS)

Reports a study of 61 secondary school students in which a theoretical explanation of structure in communication was used to create science communications of different levels of structure and to determine the effects of these treatments on knowledge acquisition. (GS)

The author takes exception to Piaget and Inhelder's conclusion that a child's first conceptualization of space is topological. (JP)

Submitted in partial fulfillment of the PhD degree at the University of Connecticut and supported by Grant M-1099 from the National Institute of Mental Health.

Study supported by National Science Foundation Grant No. GB-1742, "Ability Components of Skill Learning.

This volume was geared to answering the question, does the teaching of mathematics correspond to the needs of the majority of pupils and the society. There are three types of chapters: (1) descriptions of goals reflecting some need of society; (2) case studies of national goal setting; and (3) a summary of the May 1980 meeting of the United…

The main experience of an ideal reader while reading a text is an "envisionment" of that text, a representation in the reader's mind of the content of the text. According to this view the envisionment grows and sometimes changes as the reader progresses through the text, and the ideal reader not only updates and supplements the…

The cognitive processes involved in the human ability to understand and use positional notation (i.e., place-value) were investigated in a series of psychological experiments. Although the tasks used in all studies were very simple, usually only requiring the tested individual to identify the larger of two numbers as quickly as possible, a number…