An analysis of 43 films produced by children from 7 to 15 years old was performed to develop strategy for investigating how children learn and use symbolic system of film. Anticipated factors were overshadowed by use of commercial television formulas, suggesting strong television influence on development of children's symbolic skills. (MBR)

The growth of women's studies is an American higher education success story, but now scholars are confronting the questions and dilemmas that come with the field's maturity, including debate over the concept of gender and over the acceptance of white, middle class women as the universal standard of womanhood. (MSE)

Examines issues in broad-based training in the context of transfer of training. Classical research findings on transfer are summarized and training policy implications are drawn. Transfer is reexamined relative to recent ideas in cognitive psychology, training methods to enhance transfer are suggested, and future research needs are addressed.…

This study explores extent to which postgraduate students are able to learn from holist and serialist learning materials and extent to which such competence is predictable by questionnaires. Results indicate 2 of 26 students scored equally well on holist and serialist competence tests, and such competence is predictable from questionnaires. (MBR)

Education is a goal-oriented field. But if we want to treat education scientifically so we can accumulate, evaluate, and refine what we learn, then we must develop a theoretical framework that is strongly rooted in objective observations and through which different theoretical models of student thinking can be compared. Much that is known in the…

This paper charts a cognitive history of the concepts of quantity and quality from three inter-related and inter-dependent perspectives of mathematics, logic, and physics. In so doing, other notions associated with the evolution of these concepts are identified and explicated. It is argued that the concepts of quantity and quality, considered in…

This paper discusses the elaboration and application of "scientific culture" categories to the analysis of students' discourse while solving problems in inquiry contexts. Scientific culture means the particular domain culture of science, the culture of science practitioners. The categories proposed include both epistemic operations and…

Identifying the benefit of teaching chemistry through history was the goal of this study that used a quasi-experimental design based on the method of action research. Two groups of students in the last 2 years of a teacher preparation program participated in the study with one group receiving instruction on how to develop and teach chemistry…

This paper examines the establishment of a collaborative science education learning community over a five-year period. By assuming a pluralistic theoretical perspective which has been influenced by post-critical theory, postmodernism/poststructuralism, and feminism, focus is placed on the challenges experienced in developing a learning community…

This study explores the nature and meaning of various epistemological and affective issues that shape elementary teachers' work, such as ways of knowing, beliefs about the nature of science, values, emotions, and teachers' images of themselves as knowers. Through analyses of two teachers' narratives, classroom observations, and instructional…

This paper explores different aspects of multicultural science and pedagogy and describes a rich and well-documented branch of indigenous science known to biologists and ecologists as traditional ecological knowledge (TEK). Indigenous science relates to both the science knowledge of long-resident, usually oral culture peoples, as well as the…

This paper describes how one college professor explains the concepts of schemes, assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium to college undergraduates enrolled in educational or development psychology courses. The professor uses classroom demonstration to show how the concepts interact in an applied setting. The demonstration uses 30 children's…

The purpose of this study was to describe the evolution of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) in prospective secondary physics teachers. Craft knowledge was used as one epistemological perspective. The researcher used two cases, two prospective physics teachers, and followed their development through the science curriculum class and student…

The results of this study are consistent with a two-stage model of learning chemistry, a multi-dimensional subject, in which students accumulate knowledge in stage one, and then restructure their knowledge in stage two. When cognitive, metacognitive and achievement variables were subjected to a predictive discriminant analysis (PDA) procedure,…

Examines curriculum change from a historical perspective, focusing on forms of knowledge/ways of knowing. Discusses curriculum development in relation to sociology of knowledge, tracing history of change as science matured. Suggests that school science is a social construct, questioning the manipulative use and responsibility for scientifically…