This paper attempts to clarify some of the issues raised in the author's earlier paper, "A Theoretical Perspective on the Relationship between Bilingualism and Thought" (Working Papers on Bilingualism, No. 1), as a response to Gerald Neufeld's critique, which appeared in No. 2 of the same series. The present paper argues that Neufeld mistakenly…

This paper presents a study designed to clarify the role of perceptual-attentional factors in the development of conservation, and relates the results to procedures for assessing conservation. Subjects were 192 first and second graders. The number and type of perceptual cues in the conservation of liquid quantity task were systematically varied.…

To determine if students learn better in a teaching situation that emphasizes their positive involvement and decreases the emotional threat to their self-esteem produced by the traditional question-answer approach, a study was conducted to compare the average achievement levels of two groups of literature students--one taught traditionally to…

The effectiveness of acceleration training with children who were in a transition period was examined. Forty-eight kindergarten children were separated into four groups on the basis of their status (Preoperational vs. Transitional) and whether or not they received three sessions of inversion-negation training. The results of the immediate and…

Discusses the nature of the internal representation of cognitive structure, the methodological problems involved in mapping it, and the proposed kinds of "maps." Reviews research on the organization of scientific concepts in semantic memory. (GA)

Provides a review of research on scientific reasoning in persons between ages 14 and 18. For the application, the ability to separate variables or use the concept of "all other things being equal" is termed scientific reasoning. Over 50 studies are referenced. (CP)

This study investigated the effects of combining interactive microcomputer simulations and concrete activities on the development of abstract thinking in elementary school mathematics. Students in grades 2-4 were assessed on tasks involving designs and patterns. (MNS)

Three research areas relevant to the relationship between writing and reasoning are reviewed: (1) cultural consequences of written language, including changes in reasoning ability; (2) individual consequences of particular writing experiences; and (3) the status of writing activities in American schools. Further research is needed to establish how…

Argues that students should exercise criticism in the classroom, but this criticism should not take the form of mere training in technical skills, indoctrination into a particular conceptual system, or theoretical speculation ungrounded in reality. (SRT)

Depending on age and the demands of the task, people may use different processing strategies in object categorization. Three-year-olds used a wholistic approach with strong effects of object typicality on three categorization tasks. Older children and adults showed differential effects of typicality, suggesting various strategies including…

Illustrates advantages of research on practical factors in reasoning. Discusses role of factual knowledge and diagnosis of specific task-based errors in reasoning, influence of individual aptitudes on reasoning, and effect of educational interventions designed to change reasoning. Presents Piagetian position for each position, discusses evidence…

Evidence is provided to refute the suggestion, made by Macnamara et al. (1976), that four-year-old children perform logical operations corresponding to formal logic upon the sentential components of implicative verbs to produce indirect implications. It is argued that children use past knowledge plus additional premises to derive indirect…

Presents a rebuttal to Hidi and Hildyard's (1976) criticism of Macnamara et al.'s (1976) assertion regarding the ability of four-year-old children to grasp implicatives and presuppositions. (AM)

Reports three experiments demonstrating that recall for words increases with deeper levels of processing and with longer rehearsal intervals. Asserts that there is no interaction between those strategies. (PMJ)

Argues that the syntactic and mental model accounts of the suppression effect in deductive reasoning are inadequate. Proposes a relative salience model. Describes a test of predictions from this model in a suppression model, which obtained evidence of convergent validity for the salience construct. Results could not be reconciled with either the…