Syntactical Complexity in Written Language and Cognitive Development at the Formal Level.

The article examines the relationship between syntactical complexity of high school students' written language and their ability to reason formally. Researchers hypothesized that as one develops expertise in the ability to isolate and control variables, one is in fact developing an awareness of the need to qualify statements in the context of extenuating circumstances. Subjects were 50 freshmen high school students enrolled in English classes in Miramonte High School in Moraga, California. Formal reasoning ability was measured by a 15-item group-administered demonstration test. Several charts are also presented depicting the means and standard deviations for variables measured, and separate Pearson product-moment correlation coefficients for variables measured for male and female students.