A model of the inquiry process based on John Dewey's concept of inquiry was used to develop a means of observing and scoring individual inquiry behavior. The Teacher's Inbasket, a simulation of problems crossing a teacher's desk in a simulated school setting, was developed for the study. Fifty-one female elementary education majors were selected…

A CONCEPT ATTAINMENT TASK IN WHICH CHILDREN ARE ASKED TO IDENTIFY A CONCEPT THROUGH DETERMINING WHICH OF A SET OF OBJECTS ARE OR ARE NOT INSTANCES OF IT WAS USED TO INVESTIGATE THEIR PROBLEM-SOLVING BEHAVIOR. OF PARTICULAR INTEREST WAS THE QUESTION OF TO WHAT EXTENT THEY USED OR LEARNED THE STRATEGY OF VARYING ONE FACTOR WHILE HOLDING ALL OTHERS…

A model of the inquiry process bas"d on John Dewey's concept of inquiry was used to develop a means of observing and scoring individual inquiry behavior. The Teacher's Inbasket, a simulation of problems crossing a teacher's desk in a simulated school setting, was developed for the study. Fifty-one female elementary education majors were selected…

A 1967 conference on the nonlearner focussed on an examination of broad, major issues in contemporary American education. Among the facets discussed at the conference and briefly summarized here are educational goals and social change, the responsibilities of the schools, and controversies about the educational strategies. Also noted is the…

Two introductory passages, one regular passage, and one experimental advance organizer passage developed to facilitate initial learning were assigned to normal and retarded children. The subjects were 184 normal 8-year-olds (controls' mean IQ 118.00, organizers' 118.80) and 184 educable mentally retarded 15-year-olds (EMR controls' mean IQ 74.85,…

Personality development and structure formation were studied in 60 preadolescent children (aged 9 to 13). Six major aspects of preadolescent individuality were assessed: cognitive controls, performance on the Holtzman Inkblot Test, intellectual abilities, general response to clinical testing, general response to laboratory testing, and defense…

Two experiments studied the influence of an individual's cognitive style on concept identification. Subjects were high school males, classified into levels of cognitive style according to their performance on the Hidden Figures Test. For the first experiment, three non-overlapping groups of 30 each were required to classify figural patterns, which…

This paper discusses a series of interdependent projects designed to further define the covert processes involved in utilizing cognitive skills, as well as the procedures necessary to train an individual in their use. In an early project designed to ascertain the types of strategies used by learners in an academic or training environment,…

This paper discusses the use of social studies in developing critical and creative thought in preschool children. The social studies curriculum at any age level involves three principles: the development of an understanding of the social sciences, encouragement of acceptable socio-cultural behavior, and the development of critical and creative…

Research conducted at the Institute of General and Pedagogical Psychology of Moscow, and based on the premise that the development of thought processes is a direct product of the social environment, is described. As a corollary to this premise, Piaget's view that the development of the thinking process occurs in orderly fashion is questioned.…

Metacognition refers to an individual's knowledge concerning his/her own cognitive processes. Children's metacognitive strategies were examined in a study predicated upon R.J. Spiro's hypothesis that subjects tend to reproduce (literally recall) text information in formal situations and to reconstruct (inferentially recall) it in informal…

Summarizing the final phase of a two-year project that examined the processes by which children initially approach the reading task, this report presents both general and individual findings derived from the analyses of the children's performance over the course of a year. The first section discusses the following general topics related to the…

The purpose of this study was to measure the influence of prior knowledge on reading comprehension. Twenty second-graders who were reading at, or not more than one year above, grade level were pretested to determine the extent of their prior knowledge about the topic they would be reading. Based on their pretest scores, the students were divided…

This study represents the integration of several smaller studies and articles on how the fantasies of children between age 5 and 7 become structured by the socialization pressures of the media and the school and how this helps or hinders the growth of children's own imaginative processes. Paper 1 is a research review and theoretical overview of…

This paper, which presents a comparison of informal and formal preschool programs, describes the arguments used by proponents of the formal, more structured, teacher-centered programs and the informal, more child-centered, programs. Some of the evidence for the effects of early experience on child development and for the effects of teaching style…