Reading is a process of forming and evaluating hypotheses to account for the data in a text. Because of its complexity, the task of reading requires strategies for controlling the proliferation of hypotheses. Four of these strategies are (1) jumping to conclusions, (2) maintaining inertia (refusing to abandon a hypothesis in spite of contradictory…

This research explored the development of reasoning about persuasion. First-grade, seventh-grade, and undergraduate subjects were individually presented with a hypothetical persuasive situation in which a young child attempts to obtain a toy from various "targets." Pairs of tape-recorded persuasive appeals were randomly presented to each…

Two experiments involving 42 students from the Model Secondary School for the Deaf investigated both the visual and tactile components in the processing of spatial information. Test measures used were the Figures Rotations Test, Group Embedded Figures Test, and Tactile Rotations Test. The study suggested that spatial reasoning is a determining…

The interrelationships among young adults' levels of moral reasoning, their preferred discipline style, and how they reason with children on moral issues was investigated. After initial screening, 25 males and 25 females completed a test on defining issues of moral judgement. Then 20 subjects were classified at the high principled level, and 30 at…

The author provides 79 short maxims on the nature of contemporary education. An aphorism is defined as a short pithy statement of truth as perceived by the author. As an introduction, 12 characteristics of aphorisms, a short historical survey of aphorisms, and examples by well-known writers are provided. Aphorisms, usually brief, may use words…

This paper questions evidence for the thesis that causal reasoning of older children is more logical than that of younger ones, and describes two experiments which attempted to determine (1) whether there are true developmental differences in causal reasoning, and (2) what explanations for developmental differences can be supported. In the first…

Two experiments were designed to assess children's ability to understand recursive structures of thinking which include thinking about contiguous people, thinking about action between people, thinking about thinking, and thinking about thinking about thinking. In Experiment I, 32 second, fourth, sixth, and eighth graders were tested on eight tasks…

This paper presents the results of the second class to participate in the fast-paced mathematics program begun by the Study of Mathematically Precocious Youth (SMPY) at Johns Hopkins University. Fast-paced mathematics classes were established to meet the needs of highly gifted junior high school students. Thirty-three students participated in the…

The first section of this paper deals with the question of whether Piaget is a developmental or a learning theorist; the second section relates Piaget's research findings and developmental theory to a sequence of curriculum units in mathematics. It is suggested that Piaget makes no distinction between learning and development of cognitive…

A method is presented which provides for increased subject involvement in the research design along with greater protection of the subjects' rights of privacy. An experimental analysis revealed that with increased motivation subjects took longer to complete the questionnaire; obtained higher, and less socially desirable, Dogmatism scores; and were…

Early childhood learning of language has led some to postulate innate knowledge of an abstract symbolic linguistic system. However, if the child's abstract understanding initially requires concrete support in the form of agreement of the message with his nonlinguistic experience, the indication would be that the development of syntactic…

Investigating the effects of marijuana on human psychological functioning, this study differs from previous research in two ways: 1) it is concerned with relatively complex cognitive processes; 2) it has a theoretical rationale. The general hypothesis of the study states that marijuana will impair its user's ability to form and use abstract…

The article criticizes a number of assumptions about children and about education, among them the tendency to categorize children as bright or dull based on imperfect evidence, and the adherence to rigid views of one or another educational expert. (CD)

Investigates several key statements from Piaget's cognitive psychology and their meaning for science education. Concludes that teaching must be conducted as reversibly as possible so that when the teacher presents his own assimilation schemata it will be equilibrated by the pupils' schemata. (GA)

The conversion model of formal reasoning was examined for its ability to predict the decisions made by college students when solving concrete and abstract syllogisms. Results supported the model's contentions that reasoner's decisions reflect natural language processes in the encoding of syllogistic premises, and follow rationally from…