It is complicated to design a computer simulation that adapts to students with different characteristics. This study documented cases that show how college students' prior chemistry knowledge level affected their interaction with peers and their approach to solving problems with the use of computer simulations that were designed to learn…

The purpose of this study was to understand what personal epistemologies and science teaching goals preservice secondary science teachers of a teacher education program in the USA bring with them to their learning to teach and how they translate such beliefs into actions. A set of essay questions, developed through a pilot study, was used to…

This paper reports on an interpretive study of block play in a class of 16 kindergartners. Over the course of a school year 16 hours of videotape of the children's block play was recorded and analyzed. A typology of block play with four domains of block construction, social interaction, negotiation, and scheme development is explained and…

An analysis of the learning process that focuses on the role of elaboration and students' prior knowledge is presented. Learning from instruction is distinguished from learning and instruction, and a series of learning functions are identified. (TJH)

Analyzes the role of students' prior knowledge in their emerging understanding of the mole. The research question this study seeks to answer is what knowledge, if any, do student have regarding the mole and what prior knowledge do they access when presented problems regarding the nature of the mole. Data collection focuses on student knowledge…

Seven- and ten-year-olds listened to taped stories. In one version, familiar television characters were described as having attributes incongruous with those the children knew from television. Three weeks later, children's recall of the stories indicated considerable shifts in memory toward their preexperimental knowledge of the TV characters.…

Discusses information overload and examines several ways in which actual and potential overload affects research choices for the solo researcher in interdisciplinary areas. Topics include information overload and teamwork; entry barriers to certain specialties, including necessary background knowledge; and information utilization and knowledge…

Five experiments investigated children's understanding that expectations based on prior experience may influence a person's interpretation of ambiguous visual information. Results suggest that understanding of interpretation begins at approximately six years of age. (HTH)

Addresses the problem of finding a quick, easy, and effective way to teach necessary background knowledge for new topics so teachers can build the specific schema children will need to comprehend the text they read. Describes a mural lesson as an organized way for teachers to talk about and use pictures to provide students with information that…

Examined influence of newly acquired information on 5- to 7-year-olds' memory and general representation of a personally experienced novel event. Found that advance information specific to the event led to better recall and better integration of the experience into a general event representation both soon after the event and 4 months later.…

Examines the assumption that recognition of prior learning (RPL) is an undemanding way of receiving credit in higher education, and identifies the demands of a portfolio development approach in RPL. (EV)

Examines the ability of children to evaluate their comprehension of text using lexical, external, and internal consistency standards. Finds that children more often use lexical and external consistency than internal consistency and that the results of verbal report measures are inconsistent with performance measures. (RS)

Reviews literature on the transformational nature of creativity, in which the individual, during and after interacting with his or her environment, takes information provided by the culture and transforms it based on previous experience. Notes that young children can develop transformational ability through dramatic play in which they are involved…

Introduces the time window, a construct that characterizes when and how the integration of knowledge occurs, which is fundamental to the development of cognition. Describes the characteristics of time windows, evidence supporting them, factors that affect them, research illustrating their generality, and theoretical and applied implications. (ET)

A project at Denman College (Great Britain) to help volunteers document their community work to get credit for a diploma encountered problems in translating community work into formalized academic definitions and in the range of skill levels among volunteers. (SK)