The author argues that mathematics educators are not optimistic enough about their own professionalism as teachers or the learning capacities of their pupils. He expands on the negative effects of pessimism in relation to education. (MN)

Discusses Piagetian concepts of cognitive development and the student's ability to understand chemical concepts at the secondary level. (SL)

Training in perspective-taking skills (the ability to imagine how objects look relative to one another from another person's point of view) resulted in considerable transfer of learning to other tasks and continued subject superiority over controls seven months later, indicating an inter-stage change in cognition. (MJB)

Questions Piagetian theory that dismisses the idea of accelerating cognitive development through classroom activities. (CP)

Findings indicate that advanced moral judgment and potentially radical political beliefs came together in mid-adolescence. (Author/AM)

This research was conducted to determine the cognitive development of high school seniors assigned to three academic tracks (Vocational, General, and College Preparatory). (Author/RK)

This study describes the developmental function and cross-age pattern of individual differences in mental test behavior during the first 5 years of life. Accompanying the study are brief commentaries by Ina C. Uzgiris and Earl S. Schaefer and a reply by the authors. (JMB)

Thirteen to fifteen year-old students from Denmark, Sweden, Italy, United States, Austria, Germany, and Great Britain were the subjects on this study of formal thought processes. Socioeconomic status, sex, and school organization provided additional categorization upon which the subjects were divided. Chi square analysis revealed some differences.…

Reports results of a study comparing Piagetian level of cognitive development and final course grades for 338 college physics students. Cognitive development is measured via a group questionnaire. Results indicated the correlation between final grade and measured cognitive development was low. (SL)

Honest discussion of the fact of death with children is essential in helping them to accept and face it. (JD)

The central thesis of this study was that maturational rate, or its physiological correlates, influences the development of the organization of higher cortical functions and is therefore an important determinant of sex differences in verbal and spatial abilities. (Author/SB)

Dissimilarity judgments of all possible pairs of 10 animal names were obtained from first-, third-, and sixth-grade children, and college students. Analysis with multidimensional scaling procedures revealed a semantic space consisting of the features of size, domesticity, and predativity. (Author/JMB)

Two sets of tasks designed to measure operational thinking and the problem-finding skill of asking general questions were administered to 7-, 9-, and 11-year-old children. Analyses performed on the quality of the children's questions revealed developmental trends consistent with earlier work on problem finding. (Author/JMB)

Examined are the arguments related to whether traditional or new mathematics curricula better prepares students to write proofs. Analyzed are "proofs" presented by students; the author argues that the ability to produce a proof depends upon the cognitive level of the student. (SD)

Notes that the poor performance of malnourished children appears to be a part of a larger pattern in which vigorous efforts are made to keep children from crying by giving them heavily sugared food, carrying them most of the time, and providing very little verbal stimulation. (Author/AM)