Cognitive style models describe individual differences in information-processing, or methods for deriving meaning from the world. Each style is theoretically value-free; each is valid and has strengths or weaknesses depending upon its context. However, this value freedom has been threatened in two ways. First, while cognitive style has been…

College students need a learning environment that encourages them to develop their reasoning abilities, as well as to master course content. This booklet discusses an attempt to create such an environment: the ADAPT program at the University of Nebraska. ADAPT, Accent on Developing Abstract Processes of Thought, is a comprehensive,…

Teacher process variables and student outcomes were examined as they appeared in two settings employing curriculum materials based on alternate psychological learning approaches. The two settings were based on the cognitive restructuring and behavioral approaches described by Bruner and Gagne, respectively. Ten teachers were involved in the study.…

This booklet cites evidence indicating that intelligence can be trained, given a physiologically normal student and an intensely persistant tutor. Methodologies for increasing mental efficiency have in common the principle of coordination of physical and mental processes, whether achieved by simple relaxation training, brain polarization, or…

A research project is described which, using Gardner and Lambert's scales plus 10 other instruction-related items, sought: (1) to examine the stability of attitudes, as changes might occur from the beginning of a course to its end; (2) subsequently, to draw inferences as to the impact that a German language and/or culture course might have on…

This paper briefly reviews the literature concerning the Paiget-Burner debate over the roles of identify and reversibility rules in conservation acquisition, and describes an experiment designed to determine whether one group of rules is more closely related to conservation than the other. A group of children, aged 4-6 years, received tests of…

The effect of three levels of short-term memory (STM) and four learning modes (control, chunking organizational strategy, programmed instruction, and adjunct questions) on prose learning and recall was studied. The participants in this study were educational psychology students at Towson State College in Maryland. Significant STM and learning mode…

Potentially effective and trainable learning strategies were identified by analysis of a specially developed learning strategy inventory and a survey of educational and psychological review literature. Four aspects of the learning process suggested the usefulness of special training: identification of important or unfamiliar material, applications…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate a practical procedure for determining the optimum sequencing of pictorial classification tasks in science using mean difficulty indices generated by a standard sample of grade two students. Acquisition of such skills can affect the learner's performance on subsequent material and the teacher's efforts in…

Thinking of technology and media in relation to a concept of lifelong learning requires a shift in perceptions of learning systems in the direction of increased innovation. Two limitations in current definitions of technology and media which must be overcome in future definitions are: (1) seeing them as contemporary phenomena which sprang from…

Retardates, primary students, and college students were given either a reversal or an intradimensional shift after either a criterion of five or twenty correct on a pre-transfer problem. An automated two-choice apparatus projected planometric color and form cues from the rear onto panels that the subject was instructed to press. Both the…

The paired-associate learning of 52 fourth graders was related to measures of cognitive ability obtained the previous year. Subjects were administered the paired-associate task under one of three variations: at a comfortable rate with standard instructions; at a comfortable rate with a potentially effective learning strategy (visual imagery); and…

The instructional effectiveness of learning programs derived from Gagne-type task analysis, ordering theory analysis, and random sequenced presentation of complex intellectual skills were investigated. Fifty-seven high school students completed a self-instructional program derived from one of the three sequences. No significant differences were…

Studies of the teaching and learning process provide the basis for this research. The emphasis is on the nature of the tutorial interaction during the learning of complex material, with the eventual goal of being able to construct an automated, computer- controlled tutorial system. An active structural network (a type of semantic network) was used…

Since, by the time they enter school, children have developed a major portion of their spoken language system by being immersed in language, it seems probable that they could also apply these rules to the orthographic system if they were immersed in reading. Thus, learning to read by reading would allow the general formation of rules that could…