Examined three- to four-month-old infants' ability to form perceptually based categorical representation in the domains of natural kinds and artifacts. By showing the availability of perceptually driven basic and superordinate-like representations in early infancy that closely correspond to adult conceptual categories, findings underscored the…

Examines cognitions relevant to credit card decision making in college-aged participants (N=304). Assesses measures of beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral alternatives toward acquiring a credit card. Identifies a multivariate model predicting college student financial development of the attitudes and behavioral tendencies of acquiring a new card.…

Explores the knowledge development of Taiwanese 5th grade students (N=28) of biological reproduction. Proposes three stages of knowledge acquisition based on the results of the study. (Contains 17 references.) (DDR)

Investigated the emergence of class and propositional reasoning skills as a function of the developing ability to coordinate increasingly complex negation and affirmation operations with children from grades 1, 3, 5, and 7. Found that children's reasoning follows a logical development sequence and that different groups of items account for…

Analyzes junior high school students' astronomy conceptions by means of a written questionnaire and delineates the main findings. Focuses on the effect on climate of the relative positions of the earth, moon and sun. (Contains 41 references.) (DDR)

Explores high school students' collaborative efforts in solving qualitative physics problems and investigates how and whether confronting students with varying views improves problem solving skills. (Contains 22 references.) (DDR)

The present study investigated beginning kindergarten student teachers' mental models of attachment as a part of their practical knowledge about caregiving. Mental models of attachment (i.e. how students construct their own attachment-related childhood experiences and relationships from their current perspective) were assessed with an Adult…

Ordinary language behavior in ASL reveals parallel cognitive structures that are both similar to and different from spoken-language behavior. This article focuses on the metaphorical similarities between English and ASL that are found in the metaphors "Mind is a container," and "Ideas are objects." Also examined are differences in metaphor…

To many in the fields of organizational learning (OL) and knowledge management (KM), the relationship between the two is something of a small mystery. The authors are practitioners coming from the KM side, who in the course of their work developed a process framework to delimit the scope of KM. They believe this framework also provides a context…

We assessed the importance of academic and practical intelligence in rural and relatively urban Yup'ik Alaskan communities with respect to Yup'ik-valued traits rated by adults or peers in the adolescents' communities. A total of 261 adolescents participated in the study; of these adolescents, 145 were females and 116 were males, and they were from…

This study, based on constructivist learning theory, examined how effectively preservice chemistry teachers (N = 43) can be educated to think flexibly and to reorganize their thinking in a way that may complement diverse ways students approach the subject domain. The teacher's cognitive structure was assessed prior to and after a conceptual change…

This study investigated the knowledge base necessary for choosing appropriate statistical techniques in applied research. In this study, we compared knowledge used by six experts and six novices in two types of statistical tasks. The tasks were: 1) comparing research scenarios from the perspective of choosing a statistical technique, and 2) direct…

One of the main challenges in the current world of work is the constant change and adjustment individuals encounter. To deal with such uncertainty, a person often has to give up something less feasible and achievable in order to accomplish career goals and projects that are more practical and obtainable. As a result, compromise becomes an…

The model of the Big Bang is an integral part of the national curricula in England and Wales. Previous work (e.g. Baxter 1989) has shown that pupils often come into education with many and varied prior misconceptions emanating from both internal and external sources. Whilst virtually all of these misconceptions can be remedied, there will remain…

This article presents a preliminary analysis of a rural junior high school. This school is situated in S town, J county, Shandong province, and, in keeping with the procedure followed for naming the majority of schools in China by location of school + type of school, this school is called S Junior High. J county is one of Shandong's poor counties,…