Contends that social and human sciences are going to be changed by the new ideas and knowledge concerning the evolution of complex systems that is emerging from the natural sciences. Suggests that the work on self-organization theory and synergetic phenomena can serve as the basis for a new science that will allow the study of human systems in…

Metacreativity is described as the study of internal observations of creative processing. The concept is defined in relation to metacognition, related research is reviewed, and Creative Characteristics models which point to relevant cognitive, affective, and physical/sensory qualities are discussed. (JW)

Exposition as the dominant instructional method can be replaced by including alternative methodologies, such as demonstration, discovery, or integrated curriculum methods and strategies. Changing the direct instruction model's role from an instructional methodology to a planning tool allows the principal to introduce additional instructional…

How scientists' tools have shaped theories of mind is explored, focusing on how methods of statistical inference have turned into metaphors of mind. The tools-to-theories heuristic explains emergence of a range of cognitive theories, and can be applied to current approaches that investigate the mind as an intuitive statistician. (SLD)

Argues for maintaining a discovery capacity (both qualitative and quantitative) in evaluations of community-based health and human service programs. Discovery capacity is defined as a mechanism to detect new insights and developments in programs. Cites reasons this capacity is especially important in community-based programs. (SLD)

Explores the mathematical practices of three young mathematicians in an extended interview setting. Focuses on the interaction of discovery and verification, the role of conjecture in discovery, and the place of intuition and understanding in research. Indicates an interesting mismatch between how they valued their own guesses and how they reacted…

A discovery-based experiment is developed depending on a "false assumption" that the students mistakenly assume they know the structure of a reaction product and are forced to reconcile observations that are inconsistent with this assumption. This experiment involves the chemistry of azulenes, an interesting class of intensely colored aromatic…

Scientists often use more than the results of experiment to arrive at a result; they use anticipation and analogy to arrive at the results that fit their theories, and sometimes they correct results in the light of analogy. They also need to be clear about the difference between accuracy and precision. They do all this using not only theories, but…

This exploratory study examined the impacts of New York's Universal Pre-kindergarten (UPK) program as perceived by directors at child care centers and preschools not receiving state funds. Although only partially implemented, UPK's mixed-delivery system grants monies to a substantial number of qualifying community-based early care and education…

This study investigated how different tools differentially mediate the way groups interact and how the differential tool use and interactivity influence interdependence in online collaborative activity. Activity Theory is used as a framework to examine and explain computer-mediated interactions among students during group work. The findings reveal…

Three models have been proposed to account for the relationship between the principle of commutativity and the development of more economical addition strategies, which disregard addend order. In the first and second models, it has been proposed that either discovery or assumption of commutativity is a necessary condition for the invention of…

A TWO DAY RESEARCH CONFERENCE ON "LEARNING BY DISCOVERY" WAS HELD TO--(1) CLARIFY SOME OF THE ISSUES INVOLVED IN LEARNING BY DISCOVERY, (2) REVIEW WHAT IS KNOWN OF THE SUBJECT, AND (3) SUGGEST WAYS OF EXTENDING KNOWLEDGE ABOUT IT. THE 25 PARTICIPANTS WERE REPRESENTATIVES FROM MANY AREAS IN PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION. OBSERVERS FROM GOVERNMENT…

This research was designed to investigate the relationship between a verbal measure of predictive ability and performance on selected science process tasks by prospective elementary school teachers. The vehicle utilized for assessing the comprehension ability was the cloze procedure, with the cloze score being considered as verbal predictive…