Examines the differences between concrete and abstract concepts and their implications for instructional design and teaching. How specific concepts are stored in and retrieved from memory is described, analogies are discussed as an instructional tool in abstract concept learning, and a possible instructional strategy for teaching abstract concepts…

Developed Question Classification Scale (QCS) to permit more discrimination among types of questions used in marriage and family therapy. Database for development consisted of 503 family therapy questions drawn from tapes of family therapy experts and trainees. Each therapist-initiated question was coded in four ways, yielding a simple,…

Presents and develops a general model of the nature of a learning system and a classification for learning systems. Highlights include the relationship between artificial intelligence and cognitive psychology; computer-based instructional systems; intelligent instructional systems; and the role of the learner's knowledge base in an intelligent…

Academic institutions having curriculum centers were surveyed regarding cataloging, classification, and resource sharing of curriculum materials. Findings showed a variety of cataloging and classification practices and a low rate of input of records onto national bibliographic utilities, such as OCLC. Standardization and usage of materials were…

The Endler S-R Inventory of General Trait Anxiousness was analyzed employing Smallest Space Analysis (SSA) and factor analysis. The SSA yielded a two-dimensional lattice partitioning the space into regions corresponding to the situations specified in the inventory. The factor-analytic results were similar but not as informative. (Author/JAZ)

Critical examination of reviews of the literature on computer-assisted instruction (CAI) compares and evaluates three traditional and 13 quantitative reviews. Synthesis of the findings indicates that typical effect of CAI is to raise outcome measures by 0.42 standard deviation units, placing average students at 66th percentile of control group…

Reports on the status of the teaching of taxonomy in advanced biology classes in the United Kingdom. Reviews findings related to examination requirements, the principles, terminology, and methods of taxonomy, the understanding and attitudes of teachers of taxonomy principles, and the position of the topic in the advanced biology syllabus. (ML)

The focus is on how reasoning can be developed through the study of two-dimensional shapes, their properties, and the relationships among them. Research on children's understanding of geometric shapes is reviewed and activities to develop analyzing and classifying skills are given, with a bibliography included. (MNS)

In this study, Education Participation Scale data from 13,442 learners in Africa, Asia, New Zealand, Canada and the United States were combined and subjected to a cluster analysis designed to examine the extent to which Houle's typology fitted the phenomenological reality that exists within adult education participants. Results are described.…

This essay addresses the need to maintain authority control in machine-held catalogs as well as card catalogs. Highlights include retrospective conversion of library catalogs; the value of following Library of Congress (LC) cataloging practices; indifference to LC catalog conversion; and overcoming negative attitudes toward LC as an authority.…

Counselor responses in 24 one-session helping interviews provide the basis for an empirical taxonomy of change events in counseling. Cluster analyses identified eight kinds of helpful events grouped into two "superclusters" corresponding to task and interpersonal aspects of helping. Six kinds of nonhelpful events were identified.…

School-aged children and adults performed tasks examining the relation between selective and integrative aspects of visual attention. In a selective attention task, younger children experienced more interference when elements were closely spaced than did other subjects. In an integrative attention task, age differences were most pronounced when…

Describes various new computer graphic display capabilities (e.g., animation of graphics and text, direct manipulation of on-screen graphics elements) and reviews relevant literature that could assist in determining how these new capabilities could be used effectively in computer assisted instruction applications. (Author/MBR)

Examines development of event memory by determining how personally experienced events with two types of structure were reported by kindergartners and adults. Events in making and playing with clay were organized causally and temporally. Results show that adults and children used a goal-based hierarchical structure to remember events, although use…

Describes three experiments that examined how children (4- to 11-year-olds) use their knowledge of the attributes of living things to infer whether particular objects are alive. (HOD)