This article offers a plausible domain-general explanation for why some concepts of processes are resistant to instructional remediation although other, apparently similar concepts are more easily understood. The explanation assumes that processes may differ in ontological ways: that some processes (such as the apparent flow in diffusion of dye in…

How do we produce the past tenses of verbs? For the last 20 years this question has been the focal domain for conflicting theories of language, knowledge representation, and cognitive processing. On one side of the debate have been similarity-based or single-route approaches that propose that all past tenses are formed simply through phonological…

People use external knowledge representations (EKRs) to identify, depict, transform, store, share, and archive information. Learning how to work with EKRs is central to becoming proficient in virtually every discipline. As such, EKRs play central roles in curriculum, instruction, and assessment. Five key roles of EKRs in educational assessment are…

Research suggests that while information about design is a central feature of older children's artifact representations it may be less important in the artifact representations of younger children. Three experiments explore the pattern of responses that 5- and 7-year-old children generate when asked to produce multiple uses for familiar…

Using a symbolic object such as a model as a source of information about something else requires some appreciation of the relation between the symbol and what it represents. Representational insight has been proposed as essential to success in a symbolic retrieval task in which children must use information from a hiding event in a scale model to…

The aim of this study was to evaluate the effect of aging on the storage of visual and spatial working memory according to Logie's model of working memory (1995). In a first experiment young, elderly, and very old subjects carried out two tasks usually used to measure visual span (Visual Patterns Test) and spatial span (Corsi Block Tapping test).…

Semantic and orthographic learning of new words was investigated with the help of the picture-word interference (PWI) task. In this version of the Stroop task, picture naming is delayed by the simultaneous presentation of a semantically related as opposed to an unrelated distractor word (a specific PWI effect), as well as by an unrelated word…

For an intelligent tutoring system (ITS) to earn its "I", it must be able to (1) accurately diagnose students' knowledge structures, skills, and/or learning styles using principles, rather than pre-programmed responses, to decide what to do next; and (2) adapt instruction accordingly. While some maintain that remediation actually…

This paper discusses the following four changes in how we use sources of information or representations of knowledge: (1) from tangible to intangible media--how sources of information and representations of knowledge are manifested or packaged on the Internet; (2) from books and journals to services and databases--how such knowledge packages are…

Presents an alternative perspective that conceives of graphing as observable practices employed to achieve specific goals rather than as knowledge represented in students' minds. Highlights the nature of graphs as semiotic objects, rhetorical devices, and conscription devices. Illustrates the plausibility and fruitfulness of the new perspective in…

Focuses on the role of cognitive structures in the reader's knowledge. Argues that causality is an important category in structuring human knowledge and that this property has consequences for text processing. Discusses research illustrating that the more the information in the text reflects causal categories, the more easily the information is…

Presents a model for representing and storing binary topological and directional relationships between 2-dimensional objects that is used to provide a basis for fuzzy querying capabilities. A data structure called an abstract spatial graph (ASG) is defined for the binary relationships that maintains all necessary information regarding topology and…

Argues for the use of the archaeological metaphor as an apt one when examining the historical layers and foundational bases underlying much of the current thought and practice in science education. Suggests some sort of correspondence between archaeological and science education processes. (DDR)

Focuses on the general history, educational developments after 1923 and after 1960, primary science education developments, and a summary of the developments and changes in science education in Turkey. (DDR)

Outlines a general model about the dynamic organization and development of the mind and draws the implications of this model for learning and instruction by presenting 10 postulates about the organization of the mind and 1 general postulate about the dynamic relations between systems of the mind and the mind and education. (SLD)