This study explores the effectiveness of Kolb's Learning Styles Inventory in identifying learning styles and implications for inservice education programs for county extension agents in Kentucky. The authors also attempt to validate the use of the inventory as a framework for designing and conducting adult education programs. (Author/SK)

Chicano mothers were observed teaching their own five-year-old children. Field-independent mothers used inquiry and praise; field-dependent mothers used modeling. Trends suggest that the teaching strategies to which the child is exposed may influence which cognitive style the child develops. (Author/CP)

Discourse processing involves an interaction of text based processes and prior knowledge. It was shown that college students varied in their relative employment of knowledge-based processes, and that individuals tended to be more "text bound" when they were more "stimulus bound" according to an embedded figures test.…

An open-category task was administered to 180 elementary students. Three modes of response (related to the ways students acquire attributes for objects) were used to score the tasks. Qualitative changes in the three modes were analyzed, and the results supported a qualitative change in the modes of response. (Author/GDC)

It is suggested that the theoretical stance of Nisbett and Wilson's work on the limitations to conscious awareness of mental processes is not clearly formulated. Some methodological recommendations are listed, and a brief report is given of some experimental findings that seem counter to those of Nisbett and Wilson. (RL)

Animistic responding was generally unrelated to logical classification ability or to analytic cognitive style. Results which found high levels of animistic thinking beyond adolescence do not support Piagetian theory. Adults may respond animistically because of emotional attachments which they have formed to certain meaningful physical objects.…

To determine optimal and least effective response modes of learning disabled children, the Illinois Test of Psycholinguistic Abilities was used. Results suggest that learning disabled children may do poorly on academic tasks because they may not have enough optimal response modes, or are unable to select the appropriate one. (Author/SJL)

Discusses the differences among researchers in learning style definitions, instruments used to identify learning style, and the applications of their research. (Author/MLF)

Summarizes research findings on relationships among modality strengths, learning, and personal characteristics. (Author/MLF)

Three experiments were conducted to study the inferencing processes involved in anaphoric reference. Results show that an anaphora activates both its referent and concepts when in the same proposition as the referent, and that all three, when in the same proposition, are connected in the long-term representation of a text. (PJM)

Previous research has reported instances in which some two-year-olds failed to overextend in comprehension what they overextended in use. Fremgen and Fay found no instance of overextension in comprehension in separate experiments. From this Fremgen and Fay conclude children never overextend in comprehension. This conclusion is re-evaluated here.…

Investigates the reflectivity hypothesis by assessing (1) individual differences in preschool children's decentration ability and cognitive style of reflection-impulsivity and (2) the effects of instructing preschool children to adopt a reflective search strategy in their use of intention and consequence information in moral judgments. (Author/RH)

Advocates planning environments that respond to the behavioral needs and learning styles of children in the early adolescent stage in order to make easier their transition from primary to middle school. (CM)

Recent research has shown that academic choice and achievement may be partly a function of the student's standing on the field dependence/independence cognitive style dimension. The results of two longitudinal studies suggest that information about field dependence/independence may be of value for student guidance in the medical setting. (Author)

The author explores some of the implications of E. Rossi's hypothesis that "fine literature and poetry is essentially a form by which the words of the left hemisphere give voice to symbols and archetypal patterns of the right" (hemisphere). (Author/PHR)