This study focused on the issue of whether "scripts" guide children's comprehension and recall of stories. Two groups of kindergarten and second-grade children (N=48) from middle class elementary school districts were told two stories about typical events in the life of a young child (eating dinner and going to bed). Children were asked to recall…

Two experiments which investigated the young child's ability to deal with multiplicative classes and relations (considered behavioral indices of concrete operations thought) in double series and cross class matrices are described and discussed. In the initial study, 160 children from preschool through grade 2 received six matrix subtasks…

Four types of proportionality problems were administered to: (1) secondary school students who were enrolled in Project Physics, and (2) students not enrolled in physics. Both samples were randomly selected. Groups were not found to differ significantly in problem solving ability but both revealed that the ability to solve certain problems was…

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)

Six mildly and moderately retarded children (ages 6-8) were instructed in the Piagetian constructs of unidimensional classification and/or seriation using the "Piacelleration" learning set technique. After one semester, subjects made significant gains on: classification and seriation tasks, the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, and the…

Well-known questioning strategies, built on question classification systems, are examined. Types of question classification systems are identified as: "hierarchical," which are sequential and cumulative; "non-hierarchical," which are based on elements which should not be rank ordered; systems which are "context-bound" to specifics; and…

A study was designed to develop an instrument and methodological procedure to assess transitive relations within seriation problems in elementary school children using three criteria: explanations, judgments, and strategies. A secondary analysis to assess transitivity used the three criteria according to whether the children were conservers, in…

Six Piagetian-type tasks, designed to examine associated topological groupings, were examined to determine if a hierarchical relationship existed among them. The groupings examined were: the partitioning of sets and addition of subsets, reciprocity of proximities, one-to-one multiplication of elements, order of placement, symmetrical interval…

The purposes of this study were to: (1) determine the influence of a series of experiences involving the equivalence relation "same length as" and the asymmetric transitive relations "longer than" and "shorter than" on the ability of first and second grade children to classify and seriate objects on the basis of length; (2) investigate the…

A method for helping students to find formulas involving symmetry under various conditions is explained. Necklace symmetries, orbit counting, tetrahedra and cubes, relationship patterns, and finding patterns are discussed. (CW)

Kindergartners who had been taught to classify serials and conserve numbers through learning set procedures were retested one year later and compared with control children. Significant cognitive gains initially resulting from special intervention increased. (Author/BB)

This study sought to determine the extent of the serial position effect in listening to French and to specify the relationship between problem areas in listening to French and the position effect. The study addressed three hypotheses relative to the serial position effect and listening to French: (1) Was there a significant difference between the…

New conceptions of learning, analogy, and capacity have fundamentally changed scientists' view of cognitive development. New conceptions of learning help to explain how representations of the world are acquired. New models of analogical reasoning have suggested that logical inferences are often made by mapping a problem into a mental model, or…

The Luria-Das Information Processing Model of human learning holds that information is analysed and coded within the brain in either a simultaneous or a successive fashion. Simultaneous integration refers to the synthesis of separate elements into groups, often with spatial characteristics; successive integration means that information is…

To investigate the underlying factors of visual discrimination, memory, rule abstraction, language, and serial ordering in reading success, 79 poor and 65 good deaf readers were administered a battery of tests. Poor readers were deficient in lower-order visual discrimination and memory abilities; higher-order visual discrimination skills were…