We applied a mixed-method research design to investigate the patterns of reasoning used by novice undergraduate chemistry students to classify chemical substances as elements, compounds, or mixtures based on their particulate representations. We were interested in the identification of the representational features that students use to build a…

The study of literature such as Orwell's works will not solve issues in contemporary culture and thought, but it can help one detect abstract language in the discussion and formulation of issues.

Based on an M.A. thesis (Snow) submitted to McGill University.

Analyzed are the processes of classification and seriation which form the child's ability to reason, based upon the results of eight years of experimental work with over 2000 children. The authors have found that there is a very close relation between the development of logical actions and that of sub-logical operations and actions. The fact that…

The potency of Pascual-Leone's M construct was demonstrated by experimental production of decalages on combinatorial reasoning tasks. Logical and perceptual task characteristics remained constant while the number of variables was varied so that processing demands, relative to processing capacities, were the same for subjects at each of three age…

The course of study described in this book aims to enlarge the normal purview of literary study to include the subjective cases and purposes for reading and coming to literary judgments. Although the sequence of the four phases in this study should be maintained, the time spent on each phase may last a semester, a year, or longer. The four phases…

Reading is defined operationally as the cognitive process of perceiving and ordering our environment. As such it is a psychomotor process involving the reorganization of experiences evoked by some stimulus. Thus defined, reading is equated with perception and has several primary functions, including concept building, which begins with perception…

Examines Paul H. Hirst's concept of reason as implied in his theory of the forms of knowledge. Explains Hirst's view of the temporal nature of knowledge and analyzes his key concepts of objectivity, judgement, the given, and facts. (Author/DMM)

It is claimed that, since mathematics is essentially a self-contained system, mathematical objects may best be described as "abstract-apart." On the other hand, fundamental mathematical ideas are closely related to the real world and their learning involves empirical concepts. These concepts may be called "abstract-general" because they embody…

What is involved in consolidating a new mathematical abstraction? This paper examines the work of one student who was working on a task designed to consolidate two recently constructed absolute function abstractions. The study adopts an activity theoretic model of abstraction in context. Selected protocol data are presented. The initial state of…

The ability of some individuals to understand self-embedded sentences, which occur when a sentence is placed within another sentence of a similar type by means of a relative clause, is shown to be related to their ability to reason with the use of the syllogistic form. (Author/KM)

Bacon's views of the faculties of understanding and reason are presented and explained in reference to Baconian rhetoric. Understanding, Rhetoric, Insinuative and Imaginative Reason are defined. (Author/MS)