This paper reports two experimental studies of the development of time, speed and distance concepts in children. In Experiment I subjects (12 in each of four age groups: 5-, 8-, 11-year-olds, and adults) were asked to judge which of two electric trains on parallel tracks went faster, for the longer distance, or for more time. Subject's knowledge…

An information-processing assessment of the construct validity of aptitude tests is presented. It is stated that aptitude tests have been rather successful because they possess high construct validity, although the constructs in terms of which the tests may be most profitably understood are information-processing rather than psychometric ones. It…

Fluid intelligence (Gf) is a general relation-perceiving capacity determined by each person's cortical, neurological connection count development. Its processes are involved in reasoning, concept formation and problem-solving, where acculturation has little effect. Crystallized intelligence (Gc) manifests knowledge and general comprehension,…

Three distinct theories can be set forth for viewing intelligence: a "super-intellect theory" associated with the belief in innate ideas; a sensualistic theory that posits no intellectual role beyond synthesizing of sense-data; and a concept of intelligence as a power to abstract, judge, and reason. Many chronic and current educational…

University students were administered three Piagetian tasks and a spatial relations test, the Revised Minnesota Paper Form Board. Students' American College Test (ACT) mathematics scores were also recorded. A measure of conservation of weight, administered individually, was the first Piagetian task. Two paper and pencil tests of progressively…

The literature suggests a "concrete" to "abstract" hierarchy in concept acquisition. However, typical tests do not reflect this hierarchy. Studies have been reported in which an "abstract" option for an item was included in with a "concrete" option and with distractors. This procedure assumes that "abstract" and "concrete" behavior is on a common…

A relationship is established in this paper between three increasingly broad curriculum matters: Kohlberg's moral development concept; Sample's and Ornstein's theory of cerebral hemispheresity; and legislator-mandated competency testing. The interplay which must develop between the findings in the fields of cognitive psychology and neuropsychology…

Piaget has hypothesized that concrete and formal operations can be described by specific logical models. The present study focused on assessing various aspects of four concrete operational groupings and two variations of two formal operational characteristics. Six hundred twenty-two 9-14 year old students participating in the Human Sciences…

An effort is made at defining the lessons of the sixties as they relate to the understanding of processes of social and organizational change. This essay examines the theory of change that emerged in the sixties, describes how the current condition in the United States indicates the wrongness of this view, and suggests a reformulation based on a…

Students who are taught to understand and apply Korzybski's uses of semantics to their writing will learn to write more concretely. As students locate words and descriptions vertically on Korzybski's scale of abstraction levels, they will become able to perceive how meanings change when descriptions become either more general or specific, to…

Twenty-three German-English bilingual boys and girls, ranging from grades three to six in Saskatchewan's schools, were used in this study which sought to investigate their reading behavior when reading English passages. The Individual Reading Inventory, administered in both languages, indicated that comprehension after oral and silent reading in…

This is the first of the NCTM yearbooks to be written by a single author. He traces the history of the terms "variable" and "function" and discusses the meaning of functionality. The logical and psychological bases are examined followed by a general discussion of the psychology of reasoning. Two chapters outline the history of…

When subjects are given open-ended stimulus situations allowing for responses at all possible stages of a developmental theory, the stage scores of individuals for each situation can be treated as scores on polychotomous items. Extensions of the concepts of difficulty and discriminating power from the dichotomous case to this ordinal category…

Sixty subjects participated in an experiment involving estimation of difficulty of items in a test of reasoning ability. The estimates were to be given both according to conventional conditions of magnitude estimations with a preassigned comparison standard and according to a modified procedure of magnitude estimation where the comparison standard…

Compared was the performance of nine educable mentally retarded (EMR) children (mean age 9 years) with the performance of 50 normal kindergarten children on a test of visual perception at the abstract level. The test of 17 items involved the dimensions of size, shape, and color at four steps of skill attainment (recognition, discrimination,…