Supporters of the open approach to education are committed to the beliefs that children learn in their own unique styles, at varying rates, and best when they are actively involved in the education process. In addition, supporters of this concept are convinced that children can be trusted to set goals, evaluate performance and progress, make…

The purpose of the study was to investigate the hypothesis that requiring a student to verbalize a newly discovered mathematical concept interferes with his ability to use that concept. Five semi-programmed lessons (dealing with function machines, exponents, marker games, geometry, and One Pile Nim) were prepared and taught to a random selection…

The role of negative instances in the acquisition of the mathematical concepts of distributivity and homomorphism was examined. Two treatment levels for distributivity (positive instances and positive and negative instances) and the same treatment levels for homomorphism were crossed to form a 2 x 2 factorial design with 23 subjects per cell.…

Most current information processing theories of cognition and memory share one common feature: the structure (state-space) of memory is fixed and retrieval from memory involves searching through that structure. Learning, where it is treated at all, involves transforming one such structure into another. This form of representation is questioned and…

Reported is an investigation of formal operational thinking, measured by using four Piaget-related tasks, in adolescents. One hundred eight randomly selected eighth-grade students, enrolled in three Intermediate Science Curriculum Study (ISCS) test center classrooms, participated. The students were interviewed using the tasks. A description of the…

Presents the use of Piaget-type tasks in interviewing 108 students (grades 6, 7, and 8), to test the validity of a proposed model through which a child must pass in order to understand a specific scientific concept. The subjects' answers were scored based on the substages of development in each of five tasks involving the concept of speed.…

A series of investigations which simultaneously manipulated parameters of reinforcement and age and sex of children were conducted in order to further describe the learning process in children. In addition, an attempt was made to relate perceived parental discipline to performance in the discrimination learning tasks employed in this research. The…

Presented are seven papers given at a conference on the application of behavior modification techniques to the treatment of stuttering. An introduction to the papers gives an overview of behavior modification. The two papers of Part I present two approaches to stuttering therapy, one of which is based on operant conditioning and the other on…

Several reasons for continuing to emphasize literature as the "humanistic heart" of language instruction are developed in this paper. The arguments proposed are based on the following observations: (1) college teachers of second languages are trained primarily to teach literature; (2) literary study is a significant kind of learning; and (3)…

Research constructed a computer-assisted instruction (CAI) tutor which could transmit problem solving heuristics, choose examples, handle examples from a range of students, and learn superior student heuristics. Using a student subject model and tutorial strategy, an experiment was conducted with 284 problems. Subject response data indicated the…

Reported is a study to determine whether 249 ninth-grade students completing the third year of the Intermediate Science Curriculum Study (ISCS) instructional sequence performed differently on 19 conservation tasks than did 239 non-ISCS ninth-grade students. The tasks were presented via 35-mm color slides and a tape-recorded protocol. Students in…

The purpose of the study was to investigate differences in learning as attributed to the instructional treatment of behavioral objectives of students in a general physical science laboratory. It was hypothesized that there would be no significant difference in the achievement of students in physical science who were exposed to laboratory methods…

This secondary teacher education program is based on the following assumptions: a) learning is accomplished through the individual; b) learning is a personal concern; c) learning occurs through exploration and experimentation; and d) learning is a blend of experiences, hopes, and ideas. Jointly sponsored by RHAM High School and the Secondary…

This report contains four papers describing research based on the view of mathematical knowledge as a hierarchy of "rules." The first paper: "The Role of Rules in Behavior" was abstracted in ED 040 036 (October 1970). The second paper: "A Theory of Mathematical Knowledge" defends the thesis that rules are the basic building blocks of mathematical…

This study examines the effect on learning of repeated plays of the simulation game "Trade and Develop" (T/D). It also examines the effects of students' ability, using a general measure (determined by school tracking procedures) and a specific measure (achievement test in the specific class). The results of the study indicate that, after playing…