A content analysis approach was used to assess the value and problem of applying Piagetian theory to early childhood education. It was concluded that applying Piagetian theory to education involves an interactively changing theory and data base as teachers and children develop over time. (Author/BW)

According to the stage-learning hypothesis, children's ability to learn is constrained by their pretraining stages of cognitive development. Some procedures for obtaining unconfounded tests of this hypothesis are developed in this paper, and some applications to factorial experiments are considered. (Author/BW)

The shift from preoperational thought to operativity entails the idea of necessity. The concrete operativity tasks were analyzed from this perspective. Results from a broad class of conservation training studies were also analyzed from the perspective of their efficacy, fidelity to necessity, and implications for school instruction. (Author/BW)

This paper describes the rule-assessment approach to cognitive development. The basic question that motivated the rule-assessment approach is how people's existing knowledge influences their ability to learn. Research using the rule-assessment approach is summarized in terms of eight conclusions, each illustrated with empirical examples.…

Piaget's theoretical contributions to the study of children's play are described. The Piagetian notions of play as representing pure assimilation and as serving a consolidative function are examined. Contemporary research in which these and other Piagetian premises have been studied empirically is reviewed. (Author)

This study examined the reliability and validity of the Preference Inventory (PI) as a measure of adult creative potential. Capabilities of creatively productive persons include mental examination and manipulation of ideas, curiosity, need to create, and originality. Undergraduates' PI scores were significantly correlated with four other indices…

This study examined the degree to which change in examination preparation for graduate statistics was related to measures of attribution, expectancy, prior performance, perceived success/failure, and satisfaction. Performance was the single best predictor of change in preparation. Three attribution measures and satisfaction contributed unique…

An experiment was conducted to examine how objectives influence organization of information recalled from text. Objectives were hypothesized to affect sequence of attention, rehearsal during a review period, and to serve as retrieval cues. Results indicated that organization by objectives occurs during rehearsal but not encoding or retrieval…

This study examined the effects of performance patterns and attributional information regarding performance causes on attributions and task persistence in fourth and fifth graders who tended to minimize effort as a cause of school performance. Performance patterns did not influence attributions or persistence. Effort feedback influenced…

Two forms of an undergraduate examination were constructed. Tests varied with respect to item truth value (true, false) and method of phrasing (positive, negative). Negatively stated items were more difficult but not more discriminating than positively stated items. False items were not more difficult but were more discriminating than true items.…

Social-matching problems were verbally presented to children either with or without concrete models. In each condition, information was provided which was sufficient, superfluous, or irrelevant. Problems containing only irrelevant information were the most difficult, although models enhanced the performance of younger children but depressed the…

Imagery and sentence versions of the key word method of vocabulary learning were contrasted with three nonkey word verbal-contextual alternatives using strict, intermediate, and lenient scoring criteria. Definition learning in the key word conditions, imagery more so than verbal, was superior to learning in all nonkey word conditions, especially…

Nouns were presented in triads as pictures, printed words, or spoken words and followed by various types of interference. Measures of short- and long-term memory were obtained. In short-term memory, pictorial superiority occurred with acoustic, and visual and acoustic, but not visual interference. Long-term memory showed superior recall for…

The causal attributions of 184 teachers from metropolitan school districts were found to vary with positive versus negative learning outcomes in terms of both internality/externality and stability of cause. Relations to overall efficacy, teaching experience, grade level taught, and teacher gender were explored; only grade level differences were…

This study examined whether a synthesis of clinical and statistical data taken from psychoeducational reports completed on 42 boys referred to a child psychiatric outpatient department for school-learning problems would yield discrete clinical categories or clusters of children. Cluster membership and educational placement recommendations were…