Recent advances in cognitive psychology provide insights into thinking processes and learning behavior that can help teachers prepare students for the demands of the workplace. Studies of successful students have found that the depth of their information processing is directly related to the quality of their learning outcomes. That is, more successful students classify, compare, contrast, analyze, and synthesize information with the goal of comprehension rather than memorization. The importance of individual cognitive differences suggests that students should be taught the cognitive processes or strategies that contribute to successful performance. Therefore, the content of vocational education needs to be expanded to include problem-solving, self-monitoring, and learning skills. Vocational education should teach an integrated knowledge base of generic core concepts, procedures, pattern recognition, and specific vocational skills. Vocational educators can accomplish this by specifying cognitive skills as explicit goals or objectives; combining direct, indirect, and introspective instructional strategies; integrating strategies to help students learn by rule, discovery, and reflection; and serving as mediators for students as they think about thinking and the successful and unsuccessful thinking processes that they use. Curriculum planners should bear these same concerns in mind when developing learning and problem-solving strategies for curriculum components and selecting curriculum materials. (MN)