In the first part of the paper, some realistic expectations about schools and curriculum development, the conditions which preclude applying the standards of basic research to evaluate a program of instruction in large school systems, and some new research paradigms which have emerged from practice are defined. In the second part, an effort is…

Reported is the development, use, and evaluation of an instructional technique based upon: (1) the assessment of students' prior knowledge; and (2) a theoretical perspective advocated by Ausubel and others which emphasizes the importance of existing knowledge in influencing subsequent concept learning. The experimental group of 46 South African…

The introduction of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division to children is seen to require a compatible and sequential methodology. The sequence of learning is seen as: (1) physical action; (2) emotional involvement; and (3) conceptual learning. A learning sequence should involve the following steps: (1) connectinq number experience to…

All learning takes place through the unification of body and mind. Within the realm of motor skill learning, the term mental practice has been used to explain this phenomenon. It has been found that individuals can use their imaginations to learn and to improve upon their performance. Mental practice can be used by teachers who have too little…

Feminist therapy, a form of psychotherapy which reflects an androgynous view of sex roles, strives to identify the constraints of traditional sex role expectations and to help women take control of their lives. Women's studies courses may also achieve similar goals. Female students (N=32) enrolled in a psychology of women course were tested to…

A study tested a multiple-resources model of human information processing wherein the two cerebral hemispheres are assumed to have separate, limited-capacity pools of undifferentiated resources. The subjects were five right-handed males who had demonstrated right visual field-left hemisphere (RVF-LH) superiority for processing a centrally…

The selective learning hypothesis holds that individuals' learning of prose passages will be affected in varying ways by the passages' threatening or unpleasant content. To test this hypothesis, 19 college students read six prose passages--three containing threatening material and three nonthreatening--and then completed a cloze test for each…

Linear syllogisms present two premises, each describing a relation between two terms. The individual's task is to infer the relation among the three terms of the linear syllogism, and then answer a question about one or more of these relations. For example, "John is taller than Bob. Sam is shorter than Bob. Who is the tallest?" Students…

This teaching guide suggests practical ideas for encouraging intellectual talent in preschool children. It is part of a series of similar guides, developed by the RAPYHT Project (Retrieval and Acceleration of Promising Young Handicapped and Talented) for educating young gifted/talented handicapped children and gifted children with no handicaps.…

Theories concerning the relationship between language acquisition and cognitive development are examined, and implications for education are discussed. There is disagreement about the sources and processes involved in achieving linguistic performance, and in particular, determining linguistic competence. Among the many theories and modifications…

Many writers have suggested that comprehension occurs at several levels (e.g., literal, inference, and conclusion). However, many teachers spend as much as two-thirds of their time on lower-level skills such as phonics and literal-level comprehension skills. Some authors have suggested ways of assisting readers in achieving comprehension at more…

A model of human information processing is summarized and discussed in terms of the implications of the model and its associated technologies for curriculum research and development. Description of the model focuses on its input and output systems and its memory systems, i.e., long-term memory (LTM). Semantic networks are described as a…

The book contains papers and discussion summaries from a conference on the relationship of the arts to cognition and basic skills and the relevance of art and aesthetics research to art education. The papers suggest researchable questions in the arts and provide examples of ongoing studies in these areas. These questions are grouped into three…

The middle childhood years are a period of refinement of the semantics and syntax acquired in the early years, of substantial metalinguistic development, and of subtle changes in actual processing strategies. In a study undertaken to determine how these three factors interact, children aged 6 to 11 were asked to produce and recognize paraphrases.…

It has been suggested that cognitive style interacts with performance on tasks measuring formal thought. It is hypothesized that cognitive style interacts with task context rather than with the underlying formal thought processes. Experiments are reported to clarify the type of task that elicits an interaction and to determine whether such…