Investigated the role of "a priori" ideas in planning experiments and data processing leading to inferences. Thirty-one students (ages 11-13) observed a "combustion/candle in a closed container" experiment and were asked to interpret sets of measurements. Findings, among others, show that children preferentially experiment on…

Teaching sequences designed to develop strategies for comparing numerals in grade two (in France) were analyzed. Children's strategies were noted, and an experiment confirmed underlying misconceptions concerning number. (MNS)

Discusses how students at the end of the French primary school-cycle (10- to 11-year-old pupils) resolve multiplication and related division problems within an assessment perspective taking into account the 3 factors of the problem's representational structure, the numerical values used, and the context of the problem statement. (25 references)…

Reports results of an impressions formation test and survey of elementary and junior high school students. Indicates that younger students viewed technical fields favorably for either sex, whereas older students viewed the fields negatively for girls. Attributes a decline in interest among adolescent girls in computers in part to the normative…

Describes some topics of French research: relationships between teaching and learning, choices and constraints of the didactic system, role of the computer, and forms of the functioning knowledge. (YP)

Reports results of a study investigating effects of social interaction on utilization of categorical concepts by upper and lower class children. Describes an experimental guessing game with individual subjects and pairs of subjects. Concludes that the experimental setup was beneficial for all subjects regardless of social background or kind of…