The purpose of this study was to determine if college students could benefit from the use of visual and manipulative aids while studying a mathematical topic. A sample of 33 freshmen were pretested for mathematical ability, divided into ability levels by means of ACT composite scores, and randomly assigned to one of three treatment groups for a…

To determine concept usage performance of the mentally handicapped when confronted with familiar items used in the concept usage tasks, 32 common concepts were presented to 25 educable mentally handicapped and 22 non-retarded subjects. From the responses to this number of referents task, a concept usage task was constructed which required choosing…

The building block theory of language structure, an information processing approach, is applied to the development of a model of the reading process. Specifically, the model is concerned with the amount of time an individual will spend reading and the amount of content he will decode which is determined by a series of cognitive processes involving…

This booklet is one of the National Humanities Faculty publications designed to examine the question of what is taught, and why. This dialogue between Edwin Delattre and Thomas Donovan explores how humans go about reasoning and solving problems according to their collective, reflective intelligence. (Author/MJ)

Describes ways of projecting stereoscopic images of geologic environments for students with difficulty reasoning in three-dimensions. The photographic procedures needed to produce stereo slides are included. (MA)

A modification of Posner's letter-matching paradigm is employed to study the development of abstract visual and name codes for letters in second, fourth, and sixth grade students. (CM)

Cites reasons for the formation and continuance of the Intellectual Development Project ( IDP). The impact of IDP research is described. (CP)

Sixty graduate students sorted stories according to three dimensions for classifying analogies: (1) physical similarity; (2) similarity in goals; and (3) whether the analogy leads to a reformulation of the question. High interrater agreement supports the use of the three dimensions to understand earlier inconsistent results in analogical problem…

Contending that mathematical representation sustains a resemblance to the representational activity preceeding it and that it is this analogical resemblance that makes the developmental sequence of children's representational ability visible as a sequence, this paper explores the application of this notion to an undergraduate class in early…

Asserts that individuals are limited in knowing by the threshold of their available means of perception. Everything exists in relation to other things; a person's assumptions and methods participate in creating results he or she sees, thus social science research problems are part of a pattern of interaction. Advocates isolating not entities, but…

Presents the idea that playwrites adapting plays for children often simplify it so extensively that they do not serve the developmental needs of the child or the artistic conception of the play. Suggests that developing a thematic point of view for the play would help playwrites create fuller characters that are still understandable and enjoyable…

The relationship of cognitive development to learning science is considered. Views of thinking from both a psychological and a scientific standpoint are compared in order to shed light on current science teaching practice. Metacognition and problem solving are discussed. (Author/MT)

The goal of this unified theory of human reasoning is to specify what constitutes reasoning and to characterize the psychological distinction between inductive and deductive reasoning. The theory views reasoning as the controlled and mediated application of three processes (encoding, comparison and selective combination) to inferential rules. (JAZ)

The degree to which concreteness of prose material presented in an auditory fashion would interact with learners' lateral preference under different right hemispheric presentation conditions was investigated with 96 adults. Subjects recalled a greater number of ideas when the passage was concrete. Abstractness interacted with cerebral dominance.…

Explains the theoretical positions of Russian Marxist psychologist and educator, L. S. Vygotsky, and their philosophical foundations. Discusses Vygotsky's major psychological theories regarding cognitive development, the development of scientific and spontaneous concepts, the zone of proximal development, and language's relationship to thought.…