The question of how people learn and remember information from complex written materials is explored by means of Grime's semantic grammar of propositions and the author's analysis of the content structure of prose. This paper, presented at the 1973 Interdisciplinary Meeting on Structural Learning, first discusses such elements of the semantic…

This document presents instructional modules of the competency-based elementary teacher education program at Norfolk State College. A three-fold criterion formed the basis of the instructional module: 1) knowledge of criteria, which are employed to assess only the first level of learning; 2) performance criteria, which are used to assess the…

The authors briefly review some of the empirical studies which have compared discovery learning with expository learning. Essentially, their study replicates an earlier one in which these learning strategies were compared on two dimensions: (1) immediate acquisition; and (2) retention of concepts. Subjects were 228 seventh graders who had not…

The author's stated purpose is to convince the reader that there is practical and theoretical importance in a general principle whereby the greater the amount of interference present during the initial learning of a particular task, the better the subsequent retention to new situations. The author attempts to convince the reader with empirical…

The purpose of this project was to develop new information and analyses that would contribute to development of a systematic understanding of cognitive structure, including its acquisition and utilization during problem solving. Experimental and theoretical work was done on three specific problems. (1) Studies of individual differences and effects…

Research on massed practice (MP) and distributed practice effects to preschool children in free recall tasks is reported. A total of 40 kindergarten children were randomly assigned to High Frequency and Low Frequency word groups. No significant differences were found between the two groups on the dimensions of IQ and age. Lists of 32 high…

This report consists of a classification of elementary school age children and information concerning an Educational Grouping Questionnaire, which is designed to help the classroom teacher group her students. (See TM 001 368 for example of questionnaire; see TM 001 363 for summary of report; for other related documents, see TM 001 160, 364-366,…

This paper discusses the development of children's communicative abilities in relation to three models: the psycholinguistic model, which posits that grammatical competence is achieved through children's innate ability to abstract linguistic rules and apply them in creating sentences; the Bernstein hypothesis, which holds that not everyone…

This paper represents the opinions of two educators who are presently involved with investigations into competency-based education (CBE). It sets forth the assumptions underlying competency-based education that have been interpreted from statements in literature, from research reports, from observation, and from its proponents and opponents.…

In the university French program discussed here, students paraphrase literary passages. The analysis of their errors is used to measure their language competence and to indicate the level of language instruction needed. (Text is in French.) (MS)

Based on Carol Chomsky's methodology, an attempt was made to investigate the sequence of acquisition of a set of complex English structures by adult second language learners. The results indicated a development pattern analogous to that reported by Chomsky for child native speakers. (MS)

The present study used a two-choice spatial probability-learning situation (Bitterman, 1975; Wilson & Oscar, 1966) in order to explore the hypothesis that Korsakoff patients differ from control subjects in the way in which they respond to changes in reinforcement contingencies. (Author)

A model for sequencing intellectual skills through the use of learning hierarchies is provided. Applications of this model to social studies education are included. (DE)

A study is reported in which short-term memory capacity, estimated by a probe digit task, and memory for structured language, measured by a probe discourse task, were investigated in an experiment with third and fifth grade IQ-matched children representing two levels of reading comprehension skill. (Author/RM)