Proposes causal field theory as a model of causal reasoning. Suggests that anomaly detection through comparison with natural events triggers causal reasoning. This anomaly is interpreted in terms of agency; therefore, natural phenomena can be understood through an appeal to agency. The mechanism proposed never changes with development, whereas…

Investigated third and sixth graders' understanding of factive presupposition using two tasks: one requiring an abstract truth judgment of the verb complement, the other calling for informal judgment of consistency between the target sentence and the negation of its complement. Results indicated the development of factive presupposition is an…

Two years after the end of a two-year intervention program set within the context of science learning intended to promote formal operational thinking, achievement of students (n=234) was tested by their results on British National examinations taken at age 16. Male experimental subjects achieved an average of 40 percent more grades of C or above…

Twenty-two secondary students with learning disabilities were successfully taught the principles of scientific reasoning. Using student-teacher dialogs, students analyzed information presented in magazine articles and advertisements. Students improved their ability to identify the principal claim made in an article or advertisement, graph the…

A total of 87 children, 3- to 7-years old, were examined in a study of children's play and reasoning in games of mathematical logic and social logic. Children's sophistication in reasoning was positively related for two games, suggesting a common three-level progression from mastery of procedures to a competitive attitude to advanced strategy. (SH)

Performance of congenitally blind children and blindfolded children was compared on tasks requiring spatial reasoning and shape recognition. Blind subjects performed at least as well as blindfolded subjects on simple two-dimensional tactual processing tasks, but less well on more complex tasks requiring them to store, compare, and label objects.…

Children's analogical reasoning has traditionally been measured by classical four-term analogy tasks or problem-solving tasks. Current theories of analogical development and the evidence on which they are based are reviewed. It is concluded that structural views of analogical development are wrong, and knowledge-based accounts of what develops are…

Investigated is the extent to which students' nonscientific beliefs change by comparing before and after instruction as a function of students' reasoning skill. Nonscientific beliefs discussed include special creation, orthogenesis, the soul, nonreductionism, vitalism, teleology, and nonemergentism. (KR)

Examined and compared the logical thinking skills and science process skills of junior high school students in North Carolina (n=3,291) and Japan (n=4,397) by grade and by gender. Results indicated that Japanese students in grades seven, eight, and nine performed significantly better than North Carolina students in both areas. (MDH)

Classroom teachers frequently use various programs, strategies, and techniques to enhance student thinking, including questioning, writing, and general information processing (meaning construction, encoding, matching, analyzing, representing, and abstracting). The paper notes other strategies not used or underutilized by teachers. (SM)

Two studies examined abstract conditional reasoning. Findings indicated an increase in use of formal justifications with grade, and that abstract reasoning was facilitated by realistic context. Findings supported the idea that such reasoning may represent a qualitative change in reasoning abilities and that its development relies on appropriate…

Examinees can correctly answer many Scholastic Assessment Test (SAT) reading items when the passages accompanying the items are missing. According to one hypothesis, examinees use information from other reading items (cognates) belonging to the same passage. The purpose of this study was to test that hypothesis for the revised SAT (SAT-I) reading…

This article presents specific instructional approaches and examples to develop the algebraic reasoning skills of middle and secondary students with mild disabilities. Discussion of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics standards identifies general principles, content standards, and process standards. Discussion of effective instruction…

This study investigated differences and shifts in learning and motivation constructs among male and female students in a nonmajors, yearlong structured inquiry college physics course and examined how these variables were related to physics understanding and course achievement. Tests and questionnaires measured students' learning approaches,…

Two astronomy professors, using the Decoding the Disciplines process, help their students use abstract theories to analyze light and to visualize the enormous scale of astronomical concepts. (Contains 5 figures.)