This booklet contains five papers and reports from the Third Curriculum Research Institute of the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development of the National Education Association (Chicago, May 3-7, 1958). The focus of the Institute was upon "Learning: An Area in Need of Study and Research"; its purpose was to draw on research findings…

This module is the first in a curriculum development component. It is designed to enable prospective teachers to develop curricula for delinquency prone youth. The prospective teacher is presented with an overview of learning theory after an exploration of delinquency causation providing him/her with greater insight as a basis for curriculum…

The basic hypothesis of this paper is that problems in separation-individuation in infancy and/or adolescence may result in difficulties in utilizing learning skills. Furthermore, it is emphasized that the two periods of separation-individuation, while similar in many ways, have their own unique qualities and resolutions. Three case histories are…

A 20-task learning hierarchy for subtraction of fractions was deductively derived using Gagne's task analysis. To test this analysis empirically, composite items were written for each level and administered to students in grades 3-6. Test results were analyzed by the Walbesser Technique and Pattern Analysis; the acceptance levels developed by…

Working from a rationale derived from cognitive learning theory, this study was designed to investigate the extent to which the formation and modifiability of first impressions may be affected by the perceiver's tendency to associate the stimulus person with some other individual. Fifty subjects rated their initial attractions toward male and…

This report contains a discussion of a classification and attention training program for Head Start children. Chapter One presents the theoretical background of the project, which is based on Piaget's model of attention and classification. The methods used in the program are explained in Chapter Two. The next chapter discusses curriculum…

The specification of training objectives and the organization and implementation of courses around such objectives are becoming significant parts of instructional technology. In this report, there is a brief review of some of the background for this development in earlier, related activities of job and task analysis. Requirements for the…

Today's children receive information in relatively unstructured form through communications media which surmount barriers of time and space. In comparison, traditional sequential learning may seem slow and uninteresting. Technological innovation in education would make it possible to place emphasis on student discovery through informative media,…

Research in instructional media needs to relate itself to research in other fields, e.g., human development, individual differences, and information processing, being nourished by other theories and in turn nourishing them. Thus it needs to deal with the functions of stimuli, laying the foundations of a prescriptive theory that concerns itself…

The purpose of this study was to test associative skills by means of a paired-associate task with varied mediational instructions. Subjects were 84 first grade ghetto children, 25% of whom were from Spanish-speaking homes; virtually all the other subjects were black. The 3 x 2 x 4 factorial design included: three mediation sets (imagery,…

It was hypothesized that the acquisition of conservation behavior would be facilitated when stimuli were more concrete than abstract. Eighty white second graders were randomly assigned to four groups and presented with three conservation-of-weight problems. Clay balls and the conservation transformations were either shown, demonstrated, and…

This paper gives the results of a study of two measures of delay gratification: age and socio-economic status (SES) in young children. The subjects included 180 four-, five-, and six-year old children. Sixty children at each age level were selected, twenty children within each level of high, 20 of middle, and 20 of low SES. Delay choice scores…

Fourth grade children read experimental lessons, each of which presented one of the following: (1) a concept definition and placebo material; (2) a rational set of examples and nonexamples of the concept and placebo material; (3) the definition, a rational set, and placebo material; or (4) the definition and three different rational sets. Control…

The present experiments investigated the effects of several classical conditioning manipulations on the performance of young children in an instrumental discrimination learning situation. Two predictions from general conditioning-extinction theory were tested: (1) acquisition of an instrumental response to a stimulus for a positive reinforcer in a…

Students learned lists of spelling words in a computer-assisted drill program where the correct spelling was printed in standard form or with spaces between letters or with spaces between pronounceable orthographic clusters. Words having sounded and unsounded medial clusters (e.g., "holiday" versus "Wednesday") were taught under each display…