Tested children's ability to produce appropriate similes, evaluate a given simile's appropriateness, and select an appropriate simile. Minimum competence appeared around the age of three years for the multiple choice task, four years for the production task, and five to seven years for the evaluation task. (BC)

Examined relationship between dogmatism, ethical judgment, and orthodox Christian beliefs in master's level counselor education students (N=50). Found dogmatism and orthodox Christian beliefs correlated negatively with ethical judgment. Recommends counselor training programs may better prepare counselors by using a combined emphasis upon values…

Presents two examples of student experience: (1) Tiffany A, the bright, successful, popular student; and (2) Tiffany B, a student with a troubled home life and difficulties with learning. Reminds teachers never to judge a student by the appearance of outward successes, as high school success for these two students did not play out as expected. (SD)

Responds to an article in this same issue of this journal. Explores whether, in mainstream communication academia, opportunities for scholarly creativity and reflection are sacrificed in order to uphold criteria designed only to measure the goodness of one approach--that of the social scientist. (SR)

Responds to an article in this same issue of this journal. Discusses autoethnography and the roots of this narrative genre; suggests three ways the article connects with the teaching of communication; and notes its legitimacy as scholarly writing and a vision of its pedagogical relevance. (SR)

Judgments made by four children between seven and nine years of age regarding the safety of crossing a road in front of an approaching vehicle were studied. All participants consistently allowed smaller safety gaps as vehicle speeds increased, and three children often made potentially dangerous decisions at high vehicle speeds. (Author/PB)

Presents strategies that students can use to evaluate information and recommends ways to integrate them into the curriculum. Highlights include evaluation as a critical thinking skill; current research about the evaluation process of sophisticated information users; and recommendations for school library media practice based on theoretical and…

Recent research literature in science education, science curriculum documents, and science methods texts have been highly influenced by constructivist views of how students learn science. But the widespread and often uncritical acceptance of constructivism in science education does not reflect the heated debate between constructivists and…

The purpose of this paper is to outline a judgement-based model of adult learning. This approach is set out as a Perceptual-Judgemental-Reinforcement approach to social learning under conditions of complexity and where there is no single, clearly identified correct response. The model builds upon the Hager-Halliday thesis of workplace learning and…

At the heart of many current debates about curriculum and curriculum policy is an inadequately conceptualized and articulated notion of teachers' professional discretion. This paper begins to detail a normative and descriptive theory of the social and individual conditions required for the development of professional discretion. A better…

This paper presents an overview of research in the field of decision theory, with a focus on problem and identification. The goal is to make the decision-making process as rational as possible in order to maximize the rational administration of the organization. The decisions associated with educational administration can be categorized as…

A review of the critical thinking literature reveals that there is growing interest in developing instructional strategies to develop students' critical thinking skills and dispositions. This paper reviews the research literature regarding the nature of critical thinking in the following areas: (1) differences in the conceptualization of critical…

Related research suggests that children may show some simple understanding of event covariations by the early elementary school years. The present experiments use a rule analysis methodology to investigate covariation judgments of children in this age range. In Experiment 1, children in second, third and fourth grade judged covariations on 12…

Since media consumers must make a great many judgments about media messages and the effectiveness of any given message in meeting one's needs, media teachers should develop materials and activities to facilitate the learning of effective media usage skills. Teachers can help students to become more effective media consumers by providing an…

Few studies have attempted to measure the strength of attachment in personal relationships or the stress associated with the loss of those relationships. To measure the perceived strength of attachment and stress of loss of 20 typical relationships (e.g.,wife or husband, father, son, daughter, brother, sister, friend, lover, grandparents, and…