Extended research on cognitive factors that may differentially underlie test anxiety and academic performance by assessing differences in (a) information-processing strategies used to encode course-work information, (b) degree of belief in one's negative self-statements, (c) Type A behavior, (d) test-taking skills, and (e) unrealistic expectations…

Outlines the nature of the Toulmin approach, reviews relevant research, and reports on two experiments that tested whether developing a persuasive argument by adding combinations of Toulmin's elements produced significant effects on attitude change. (PD)

A 16-item self-report measure of loneliness and social dissatisfaction was developed to survey 506 third- through sixth-grade children. The measure was found to be internally reliable; more than 10 percent of subjects reported feelings of loneliness and social dissatisfaction; and children's feelings of loneliness were significantly related to…

This article reviews progress toward the development of a cognitive theory of aptitude for learning and presents descriptive and precriptive goals for aptitude theories. Preliminary hypotheses about the nature of cognitive processes in aptitude for learning from instruction are reviewed. Twelve constituent points of the descriptive theory are…

The keyword method was compared to the context method of learning new vocabulary in two experiments with undergraduate subjects. In both experiments the keyword method produced significantly greater definition recall. Implications for vocabulary learning theories in particular, and discovery learning approaches in general, are discussed.…

Examines the cognitive processes associated with speech and writing. (HOD)

Offers a step-by-step procedure for teaching intermediate grade poor readers three important text-based strategies that boost their comprehension of expository prose by stimulating their thinking. (FL)

Investigated whether instructing children in the component skills underlying Piagetian transitivity tasks would increase their performance on both transitivity-related tasks and on reasoning tasks not directly related to transitivity. Results indicate that incorporating the quantification of certain abstract symbols, training can influence…

Investigated the role of "a priori" ideas in planning experiments and data processing leading to inferences. Thirty-one students (ages 11-13) observed a "combustion/candle in a closed container" experiment and were asked to interpret sets of measurements. Findings, among others, show that children preferentially experiment on…

Argues that style and self are inextricably bound together in a writer's work, and the voice that they create emerges only after a certain level of writing development has been reached. This happens when the writer has been thoroughly immersed in a context and has had plentiful experience in a specific form of expression. (HOD)

Discusses the theory that reading is more than the searching for meaning within a text. Argues that the meaning of a text actually is in the interaction between reader and text. (FL)

Describes an assignment to focus students' attention on the thinking process in which students write dialogues that reproduce concretely the dialectic movement of a formal argument. Includes a more advanced exercise in which students' address the remarks of literary critics. (HTH)

Concern by the University of Washington School of Medicine that some students did not master the concepts of clinical reasoning led to a study of the class of 1981. Results suggest a significant problem with the acquisition and retention of clinical-reasoning skills in some medical students. (Author/MLW)

Mastering the basic number combinations involves discovering, labeling, and internalizing relationships, not merely drill-based memorization. Counting procedures and thinking strategies are components, and it may be that using stored procedures, rules, or principles to quickly construct combinations is cognitively more economical than relying…

The author first corrects Baroody's description of the network retrieval model for basic number facts, in which facts are stored in memory and retrieved as needed. He then indicates weaknesses in Baroody's argument. (MNS)