Explains how education majors try to learn to recognize thought unit sentences (ThUS's) and to gauge their difficulty. Shows examples of simple writing and discusses the task of writing ThUS's to match style and level of author. Gives a rationale for doing a readability analysis in this way. (FL)

Described are the historical uses and research involving the discipline of artifical intelligence. Topics discussed include: symbol manipulation; knowledge engineering; cognitive modeling; and language, vision and robotics. (Author/DS)

This experiment explored the effect of teacher expectations on vocational students' cognitive and psychomotor skills and on attitudes. Although teachers' expectations changed student attitudes toward teachers and subjects, neither expectations nor attitude change had an effect on student achievement. (SK)

Research is reviewed on human spatial cognition in real, everyday settings and is organized into five empirical categories: age, familiarity, gender, class and culture, and physical components of settings. (Author/DB)

The construct validity of reading comprehension test items was studied in a two-stage process. Five characteristics of task difficulty were defined and a heterogeneous set of 52 items were rated for these characteristics. Then correlations were obtained between ratings and item difficulty data. (CTM)

Relationships among Piagetian reasoning assessments and standard measures of intelligence and achievement were determined in 1972 by Stephens, McLaughlin, Miller, and Glass (EJ 055 112). The data were reanalyzed by Humphreys and Parsons in 1979 (EJ 218 642). In reply, Glass and Stephens note fallacies in Humphreys' and Parsons' reasoning.…

Accounting for verbal reports requires explication of the mechanisms by which the reports are generated and influenced by experimental factors. We discuss different cognitive processes underlying verbalization and present a model of how subjects, when asked to think aloud, verbalize information from their short-term memory. (Author/GDC)

This study examined whether a relationship existed between field-dependence-independence and scientific attitudes of sixth-grade students in SCIS. Findings indicated that such a relationship was not statistically significant. (Author/DS)

Summarizes experiments indicating that a basic key to learning is the development of concepts of pattern recognition and the appropriateness of using a particular theorem. (Author/SK)

This discussion of information structures in written texts describes how linguistic analysis of short published reports leads to the presentation of an algorithm that depicts the problem-solving process in terms of a series of evaluative questions. (Author/CHC)

Research on levels of questioning and their effects on learning is reviewed. It is shown that higher level questions facilitate reproductive and productive knowledge, but the reasons why are not clearly understood. An information processing model which accounts for question level effects is discussed. (MH)

Compares the production of speech and sign: the approaches used in research, the cognitive processes involved, and the output timing mechanism. (AM)

The study examined 120 bilingual Mexican American and 24 monolingual Anglo American (pre-K-1) children's comprehension of 26 relational concepts by manipulating the natural language to separate and evaluate cognitive and linguistic variables. Six hypotheses were proposed as operating principles applicable to, but not necessarily limited to,…

Methods for teaching writing skills are described. Techniques include utilizing writing exercises as they present themselves in content courses, establishing an honor system, individualized instruction, and repeated practice sessions focusing on specific writing skills. (LH)

The author describes activities he uses with secondary school science students to learn about their reasoning. (Author/SA)