Although the kind of transactional dialogue used in everyday trade can be of potentially great value, those found in textbooks tend to be of limited usefulness because they are unrealistically long, complex, formal, and descriptive, overuse atypical structures or vocabulary, and assume an understanding of the culture. (MSE)

The separate and interactive effects of three kinds of background knowledge (content area, context of materials presentation, and lexical items in the text) on reading comprehension were studied. Unlike native readers, nonnatives neither show significant effects of background knowledge nor appear to have a good sense of the text's difficulty. (MSE)

Attention to others' activity increased with age in children ages four to six. Subjects who showed stable gains in performance level across sessions engaged in more observation of others' activity than did subjects who showed only temporary gains. Subjects who showed no gains observed others' activity least. (Author/RH)

A study of children's structuring of complex sentences requiring mood choices is reported. The objectives were to provide data for an understanding of sentence construction problems and to form a better idea of the acquisition of the intrinsic linguistic contrasts in the Spanish modal system. (MSE)

Investigated the roles of successful task performance and achievement instructions on attitudes regarding the guided-design approach to instruction. Results revealed that students erroneously informed that they had done well on the task stated more positive attitudes. However, the achievement instructions did not have a statistically significant…

The pros and cons of using literature in an ESL classroom are examined. It is argued that if literary texts are used, they must be carefully selected and approached in a manner promoting an aesthetic interaction between reader and text. An example of this technique is given. (Author/MSE)

The performances of five- and six-year-old children on several motivation tasks (causal attribution, affective self-motivation, goal setting, and perception of task difficulty) were compared in order to determine the emergence of motivation as a self-reinforcing system in young children. (MP)

A comparison of double as opposed to single multiple-choice questions yielded significant differences in regard to item difficulty, item discrimination, and internal reliability, but not concurrent validity. (Author/PN)

Tested the hypothesis that increasing problem complexity elicits strategies of greater efficiency from older adults. Responses of older and younger adults were compared in a version of "Twenty Questions." No evidence was found that older adults seek more efficient strategies. Both groups maintained the same strategies. (Author/JAC)

A taxonomy is proposed for evaluating the quality of learning in terms of a composition's structural complexity. Five writing structure levels are distinguished (incoherent, linear, conventional, integrated, and metaphoric) and samples of high school students' compositions illustrate each. Implications for both the psychology and teaching of…

Forty-two experienced teachers rated a set of reading passages by the SEER and the Rauding procedures. Findings indicated that the two procedures resulted in significantly different ratings, that teaching experience did not affect the rating, and that the SEER ratings agreed substantially with readability formula estimates of the same passages.…

Describes the International Baccalaureate (IB), a demanding core curriculum with rigorous examinations developed for secondary students in Europe. Discusses the reactions of several U.S. educators who have used the IB and presents sample questions from IB examinations. (RW)

Investigates the hypothesis that strategy development might occur within or beyond the period of formal operations, but that this development might be discernible only beyond the second order of analogical relations. Adolescent strategy development in the solution of third-order analogies resembled in pattern the preadolescent development found in…

Children and adults were asked to place something "in front of" or "behind" a featured or nonfeatured object. Most subjects responded to the object's inherent features. A significant number of adults used the observer orientation cue. Children had more difficulty with the nonfeatured object but also used the observer…