Problem Solving Behavior of Teachers as a Function of Conceptual Structure.

The article examines problem solving behavior in relation to ideas about conceptual structure in teachers. The idea is to understand how teachers' conceptual structure may affect their classroom behavior and consequently affect the development of students' conceptual structures. A conceptual structure means a set of cognitive mediating links which produces a set of techniques by which an individual receives, processes, and transmits information. According to the author, the complexity of an individual's conceptual structure is a function of two variables: (1) conceptual structures vary in the number of dimensions along which they can order stimuli, and (2) conceptual mediating systems also vary with regard to the complexity and degree of superordination of schemata with which the perceived dimensions of information are organized.