Problem solving in mathematics incorporates abstract thinking skills, number logic skills, and a nearly endless list of other factors. One problem-solving task required in university-level mathematics courses is integration. This study investigated instructor presentation of a specific problem-solving strategy and whether it impacted performance…

The aim of this study was to develop a procedure that could be used to appraise the cognitive features of subject (achievement) tests. Cognitive taxonomies and an accompanying coding scheme were developed and applied to the Graduate Record Examinations subject tests in Psychology and Literature in English. The taxonomies were based on the manifest…

Cognitive appraisals are believed to influence how women judge or appraise risk in acquaintance interactions which lead to sexual assault. Ways in which men and women judge the presence of risk factors in scripted acquaintance rape scenarios, and whether alcohol was a significant factor in assessing risk, are examined in this paper. Participants…

Leading scholars in the fields of neurology and psychology recently have published persuasive arguments linking cognition and the emotions as well as proclaiming the significance of emotional intelligence. This paper documents some of those assertions and connects them to the importance of formal education in the skills of critical feeling through…

Explicit representation of relations plays some role in virtually all higher cognitive processes, but relational knowledge has seldom been investigated systematically. This paper considers how relational knowledge is involved in some tasks that have been important to cognitive development, including transitivity, the balance scale, classification…

Based on the hypothesis that cognition and sleep are linked, this study compared the sleep patterns of nine children (ages 6-16) with autism with those of children with mental retardation and no disabilities. The children with autism were observed for two consecutive nights at a laboratory where their sleep patterns were recorded. Results found…

The brain's architecture serves as the basic model for theorizing about how the brain works. Current brain research confirms earlier suspicions that thoughtfulness has a great deal more complexity than the simplistic left/right distinctions of earlier research. This paper draws on the work of Carl Jung to propose the brain-psyche model as an…

This paper discusses the results of a study of 27 college students with deafness that investigated whether cognitive processes are modality dependent in individuals with deafness. The experiment included two separate parts, one composed of shape trials and the other composed of word trials. An initial stimulus was shown on a computer screen for…

This document presents a demonstration of how drawing affects writing, how writing affects drawing, and how both affect the thinking process of students. The third grade students participating in the studies were selected on the basis of their prior performance in reading and mathematics and their identified potential for achievement. The students…

This investigation is part of an ongoing, larger study which is looking at joint activity and appropriation of new understandings in an inquiry mathematics classroom setting. Instances of help-seeking which occurred while children were endeavoring to solve non-routine problems at home were analyzed. Considered in this study were (1) the kind of…

This study describes the emerging mathematical understanding of one student enrolled in an elementary mathematics content course. Through the medium of her journal entries, a portrait of Elena's struggle to overcome her difficulty with mathematics and construct conceptual knowledge emerges. Though these struggles are not unique, Elena's story is…

Data reported in this paper were collected as part of a larger longitudinal study of the development of young Chicano or Mexican American children and their families. The measures completed by the children included the McCarthy Scales of Children's Abilities, a standardized instrument that measures general intellectual level. The first three…

Research indicates that the instructional conversation (IC), a dialogue between teacher and learner in which prior knowledge and experiences are woven together with new material to build higher understanding, can be an effective method for raising the low academic achievement levels of various groups of Native American students. The IC contrasts…

In this age of proliferating visual communications, there is a permissiveness in subject matter, content, and meaning that is exhilarating, yet overwhelming to interpret in a meaningful or consensual way. By recognizing visual statements, whether a piece of sculpture, an advertisement, a video, or a building, as communication, one can approach…

An expanded vision of evaluation is offered that accommodates the use of both descriptive information and evaluative information, and which connects evaluation in the naturalistic paradigm with evaluation in the rationalistic paradigm for making informed decisions within programs of education and development. The model of "Information Development…