Search

According to Piaget's theory, maturation of the nervous system is sufficient for the development of formal thought. If this were the case, the job of the educational system would be small indeed. Rather, maturation determines only the totality of possibilities and impossibilities at a given stage. This study investigates whether instructional procedures can be designed and employed to successfully affect the transition from concrete to formal cognitive functioning in fifth and seventh-grade students with regard to one aspect of formal thought. Thirty-two fifth grade students and 32 seventh-grade students enrolled in an elementary school and a junior high school in Lafayette, California, served as subjects. Results suggest that instructional procedures can affect the transition from concrete to formal cognitive functioning in fifth- and seventh-grade students. Some implications for teaching are also discussed. (Contains 4 tables and 1 figure.)

This study, conducted with seventh graders, lends support to the Piagetian hypothesis that the development of formal operations is a prerequisite for the effective learning of the proportions concept. (MK)

Reports on a classroom technique (social interaction) for improving fifth-grade students' performance in the task domain of controlling variables. The technique involved asking students why something happened, asking for justification/evidence, suggesting alternative explanations and asking for evaluation of the same, and accepting explanation only after all reasonable alternatives were ruled out. (Author/JN)

After discussing task-specific information and form/content dissociation, presents evidence from training studies which suggests ways in which the form/content distinction might guide researchers in designing diagnostic measures leading to specific instructional strategies based on the diagnostics. (Author/JN)

The article focuses on the cognitive learning ability of school students. Little is presently known about specific factors and how they interact to contribute to and affect the transition from concrete to formal cognitive functioning. It has been observed that students as young as second-graders have at least an intuitive notion of the formal idea of controlling variables related to cognitive ability. This idea is fully developed only during adolescence. It might be possible to utilize prior intuitive understanding to facilitate learning and stabilization of more formal (abstract) conceptualizations during adolescence. Intellectual development begins with instrumental activity, a kind of development by doing. These activities become represented and summarized by individuals in the form of particular images. Further, with the aid of symbolic notation that remains invariant across transformations in imagery, the learner gradually becomes aware of the formal or abstract properties of the things he is experiencing. These findings and statements suggest that it might be possible to design instructional sessions which will enable students to function at the formal-operational level with respect to specific concepts.

This article investigates the ability of seventh graders to comprehend and to effectively use the scheme of proportions in the classroom. Twenty–eight seventh–grade students enrolled in two average mathematics classes in a junior high school in Lafayette, California. All subjects were administered three Piagetian–styled conservation tasks prior to training on the conservation of weight, the conservation of volume, and displacement volume. The results showed that the active group outperformed the verbal group on all posttest tasks with differences reaching statistical significance on four of the six tasks.

The article cites a study which investigates instructional procedures for transition from concrete to formal operational level of thinking among fifth and seventh grade students. It uses an experimental pretest and posttest control group design which conducted two separate examinations. The task includes four Piagetian styled cognitive functioning that administers and controls subjects and training sessions followed by an individual interview. The performance of the adolescents determined the instruction procedures has affected the transition with respect to the ability of control variables.

This article presents an investigation of the effectiveness of concept mapping as an instructional tool in science education. It is inferred that the impact of concept mapping on achievement and attitudes is based upon using teacher-prepared maps and those created by student concept-mapping activities. A metaanalysis of the instructional tool showed that the concept mapping had medium positive effects on students' achievement and large positive effects on students' attitudes. Improved achievement was more evident in studies which used biology as their content focus.

This article examines the effectiveness of the Thinking Aloud Pair Problem Solving (TAPS) method as a strategy in teaching problem-solving in science education. The method is proposed as a valuable resource to be taught to science students for solving their own homework and personal problems. It involves students working in pairs with each person assigned a specific task. Research on peer collaboration suggest that this type of method promotes conceptual development. The use of TAPS as described in the article assumed that students bring into the course the requisite skills and abilities to address the problem-solving situations they will face. It is further assumed that the effectiveness of the thinking-aloud procedure is dependent upon a repertoire of required skills and familiarity with the content.

This article provides information on research which examined the combined effects of notetaking and self-questioning on examination performance in science with an entire combination plan of fifth and sixth grade students. Overall, gains on science examinations were found when notetaking or self-questioning strategies were in effect. The study suggested that notetaking and self-questioning training can improve student quiz performance in science. Although the use of commercially prepared material have affected the scores of lower achieving students, notetaking and self-questioning provided students with skills in reading and writing and were able to synthesize paragraph information and identify the topic and supporting details.

This article explores the design of science instruction on the physical properties of matter. Inertia, extension and gravitation are the three fundamental physical properties of matter and their measures are mass, volume and weight. The domain of application of the quantities can be determined by reviewing research studies by science educators and psychologists reporting investigations and surveying current science textbooks. To understand the quantities in physics textbooks requires the coordination of subject-matter knowledge.

This article discusses the social construction of knowledge when students are engaged in collaborative concept mapping and develops a framework for understanding concept maps from a sociologically informed point of view. It is suggested that the psychology-based conceptualization may have been appropriate for individual concept mapping, but does not provide for an appropriate framework for the collaborative construction of concept maps or the function of maps in the interaction. The concept map used as a tool for social thinking, a conscription device, and an inscription method helps in planning for group experiences and in working to better adapt the heuristic for interactive classrooms.

This article presents a study which focused on the effects of oral communication rate on net recall or the amount of correct information recalled from an audio learning task. The main objective of the study was to model mathematically the effect of oral communication rate on net recall. Findings of this study support the information processing view of learning, which says that the information input to short-term memory (STM), less information is coded to long-term memory due to rapid overloading of STM and more information is lost without being processed. The study was successful in modeling the communication rate and adding a coefficient representing communication rate to Anderson's equation.

This article presents a study which focused on the effectiveness of an introductory science course on force in reducing misconceptions on force. In the first lesson, an inventory is made of student ideas on force by students answering written questions on forces acting on objects in various situations. In the second lesson, students are involved in practical activities. In the third lesson, the teacher continues to collect opinions about forces in class through worksheets. The lessons were found to be effective in changing student ideas toward scientifically correct conceptions in regard to forces in rest situations and frictional forces.

This article investigates the use of concept mapping in college autotutorial biology students over a three instructional unit exposure, as well as, the student attitudes toward concept mapping. The study shows that concept mapping appeared to enhance clarity of learning as supported by two error analyses and student claims. Further, mapping also seemed to enhance integration and retention of knowledge as supported by analysis of cross links, a comparison of student maps with initial and post interviews, and student claims. In addition, this study provides some evidence that meaningful learning enhanced usability of knowledge.

The article discusses the research on the use of cluster analysis in categorization of physics problems. Sufficient details are included to enable the reader to use and adapt cluster analysis in problem-solving research dealing with categorization. The problem-solving process includes the formation of an internal representation of the external environment. This internal representation provides the framework within which the problem is to be solved. The problem solver operates on the representation rather than the statement of the problem.

The article discusses spatial visualization and sex related differences in science education achievement. An international study was conducted in 1970-72 showed that boys scored higher than girls and that the differences increase as the students grow older. Although sex difference in science achievement scores has been widely noted from the previous studies, the cause of or explanation for the difference remains a matter of speculation. Since boys and girls attend the same classes or study the same curriculum in the populations tested both in the U.S. and abroad, exposure to science content cannot be advanced as a valid explanation for the difference. Finally the article presents that the two hypotheses put forward most frequently to account for the difference are a disparity in innate intellectual ability and different patterns of socialization, both in school and out of school.

The article reports that in the Federal Republic of Germany, research in physics education has increased in the course of the past twenty years. Up to the mid 1970's, research activities were centered on the development of concept or process-oriented curricula in the hope of improving learning outcomes by better organizing the topics and by making available new teaching and learning materials and equipment. The basis for the development of philosophy of instruction and research strategy is summarized by the limitation in learning of aged 10-16 students, enthusiasm of the students in learning physics and chemistry, and the individual's learning achievements.

The article discusses a study on analogical reasoning in teaching particularly on some examples in electricity. Table 1 shows some studies on the water model. The subjects for the study were 64 Grade 6 children, 42 Grade 8 children and 87 Grade 10 children. The pupils first had to find connections between the suggested analogic situations and the basic electric circuit. The train analogy and the thermal analogy were discussed and elaborated. The train analogy appeared to supply an interesting aid for a differentiation of energy and material aspects of current flow and for overcoming the mistaken conception of "current consumption" in a series circuit. The thermal analogy enables the notion of potential to be introduced as well as clarifying the "flow path" aspect of resistors.

This article focuses on the development of an experimental teaching method in an introductory collegiate physics course. The researchers developed an instructional method which seemed appropriate for physics teaching based upon learning models and easy access to low-cost hand-held calculators. The research has proceeded in two directions, first, information processing, and second, constructing solutions. Information processing is concerned with the conscious steps of the problem solver, while constructing solutions is concerned with the internal cognitive processes which result in these steps. The findings indicate that the novice problem solver appears to lack the critical knowledge necessary to apply the appropriate equations or functions that result in the solution of a problem.

The article examines students' attitudes toward science and their willingness to study science. Study shows that a cooperative, small investigative group method resulted in higher pupil on-task behavior and lowered the rate of absenteeism. Thus, the cooperative approach at the science secondary level showed different results in academic achievement, encourages high on-task behavior, and discourages off-task behavior. The authors concluded that using cooperative approach in teaching science, students' interests and attitudes toward science as well their achievements in science increased. It is found that cooperative learning was a powerful method in effective learning.

The article presents a study on learning outcomes from solving problems in genetics. The author suggests that different problem types may contribute differentially to different learning outcomes. In the article, the author examines various types of problems other researchers have used in an attempt to demonstrate that 1) there are four important classes of learning outcomes that could result from problem-solving instruction in genetics 2) it is possible to construct a typology of genetics problems and demonstrate that different types vary in their potential to promote learning outcomes in each of the four classes and 3) Problems create a situation where there is the potential for realizing learning outcomes.

The article describes a study on variations on prior knowledge in students. The author provides answers on the following questions: (1) are there certain propositions that all students share with respect to a topic?; (2) are there different groups of students whose members share distinctive sets of propositions?, and (3) to what extent is the students' knowledge of a subject idiosyncratic? To answer these questions, she conducted a study by giving a clinical interview to ascertain students knowledge of heat transfer. The interview was intended to elicit an extensive set of student statements as their knowledge allowed. The interview consists of a demonstration and a series of questions were asked as the demonstration proceeded. It is tape recorded and lasts for 30 minutes.

The article discusses research being done regarding the effects of structured social interaction (SI) on learning to control variables. The aim of this study is to report on what proved to be a highly successful classroom technique for improving the performance of average ten-year-old children in the task domain of controlling variables (CV). The study was participated by three fifth-grade classes. According to the results of this study, the effects of SI treatment were quite substantial in comparison with the effects of the physical interaction treatment. In addition, SI was used to emphasize the everyday nature of CV reasoning.

The article discusses research being done regarding the test of formal reasoning. According to the researchers of this study, the problem with the current tests of formal reasoning is that they are unable to give much meaning to performance on these tests. In addition, researchers have vaguely appealed to Piaget's model in order to interpret performance eon formal reasoning tests. Moreover, researchers also tried to account for interstudent performance differences. The article also discusses the three dimensions of formal reasoning, including working memory, task-specific information, and form/content dissociation.

The article focuses on the factors that affect the cognitive style or reasoning ability of students, particularly in science class. It states that students vary in their learning ability because of two affective factors, including their individual feelings and their social roles and interactions which lead to field dependence in learning. The article supports this problem through a study conducted to 54 grade six students, in Berkeley, California. It reveals that field dependence greatly affects the performance of students in their reasoning development. The article suggests that teachers should provide a classroom environment wherein students are free to explore, express and discover ideas, in order to promote maximum learning. Parents' participation is also important in learning.