Preschool and kindergarten children were shown carnival-game sequences which pictured an actor's outcome at four game trials. At one session, children summarized the game outcome after every sequence; at another session, subjects judged the actor's ability after viewing the trials. Results suggest that accurate summary information is a necessary…

This study investigated the relationship between the attainment of a Piagetian formal operational concept (proportion) and personal characteristics in 117 children 10 to 12 years old. (SB)

Piaget's and Marx's cognitive theories of development are briefly compared and contrasted. This provides background for a critical look at Buck-Morss' interpretation of cross-cultural differences in performance on Piagetian abstract formal reasoning tests. (MS)

Attempts to identify variables for predicting academic success in electronics and find a model for predicting success in each of three main types of electronics programs. Results indicate that student's success in math and science in high school is a good predictor of their success and abstract learning preference is a valid discriminator between…

Argues the benefits of introducing S. I. Hayakawa's "abstraction ladder" to students. Discusses its implications for developing good writing and thinking skills and ways to use it with students. (RAE)

Outlines the elements of a revised epistemological approach to thinking about library and information science. Hermeneutical phenomenology seeks an understanding of the essence of things (such as the library) and takes into account, among other things, the intentional stances of the human actors within the realm of library and information science.…

Traces the decline of rhetoric and the underlying social changes that hastened its fall from grace. Argues the need for a reconstructed rhetoric. Creates a context for considering a visual rhetoric. Suggests that abstraction and scientific reductionism fail to address issues of human agency. Cites five examples of social or cultural problems that…

Includes a dandelion poem that is designed to stimulate elementary students' creativity and abstract-thinking skills. Offers several exercises to go with the poem: creating mental pictures, drawing first images, and performing for better understanding. A reproducible for creating a dandelion-shaped poem is included. (SM)

Describes an earlier study on the main characteristics and background of undergraduate students' difficulties when trying to solve mathematical tasks. Focuses on and extends part of an earlier study that concerned task solving strategies. Indicates that focusing on what is familiar and remembered at a superficial level is dominant over reasoning…

Describes a framework for identifying and classifying students' alternative conceptions and unscientific patterns of reasoning within a particular scientific domain. Provides a basic system for indicating how much researchers know about students' non-scientific conceptions and reasoning. Suggests how the framework may prove useful for…

Interviews 120 children in kindergarten and grades 2, 4, and 6 with five Piagetian tasks to determine the grade level at which most have constructed transitive reasoning, unit iteration, and conservation of speed. Indicates that construction of the logic necessary to make sense of the measurement of time is generally not complete before sixth…

Two experiments with children five and eight years of age examined the effects of different types of similarity on analogical problem solving and explored the cognitive components responsible for these effects. Results indicated that superficial and structural similarity facilitated the process of drawing analogies. (WJC)

Articulates and operationalizes a framework for investigating the level of quantitative literacy in the United States. Uses data from the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS) to document the level of quantitative literacy in the U.S. Indicates that students fall short in their understanding of the nature of mathematics and the…

The Test of Nonverbal Intelligence-3rd Edition (TONI-3) and the Analogic Reasoning (AR) subscale of the Universal Nonverbal Intelligence Test (UNIT) were administered to 35 individuals with autism to determine whether real-world-knowledge deficits affected intelligence scores. The 2 tests are similar in format; however, the TONI-3 includes only…

This paper describes the effects of learning support on simulation-based learning in three learning models: experiment prompting, a hypothesis menu, and step guidance. A simulation learning system was implemented based on these three models, and the differences between simulation-based learning and traditional laboratory learning were explored in…