Examines secondary school students' ability to interpret representations of three-dimensional objects including prototypes of component, perspective drawings, orthogonal views, descriptions by coordinates, verbal descriptions, and verbal quasi-descriptions. Students were given four identical wooden cubes and asked to construct the objects. Reports…

Explores adolescents' abilities to reason when considering civic issues. Analyzes dialectical essays composed by 22 high school students in order to evaluate the degree of critical reasoning displayed by the students. Suggests that high school students are capable of taking a position through critical evaluation when confronted with a civic issue.…

Examines shortcomings of the predominant elementary social studies curriculum approach, expanding environments. Analyzes a fourth-grade text to illustrate the ways that materials reinforce this approach. Suggests that freeing the curriculum from the developmental theory of expanding environments would foster a variety of organizational patterns…

Reports information concerning scope and sequence of economics education gathered by a survey of members of the Social Studies Supervisors Association and the Council of State Social Studies Specialists. Responses are compared with those of classroom teachers and college-level faculty. Suggests that a national K-12 economics curriculum is…

Analyzes the time children of different ages, sex, and proficiency levels spent on various compositional processes while creating a melody. Suggests that the amount of time used for exploration, development, repetition, and silence has an effect on the subject's ability to replicate the melody. Finds developmental differences in strategies for…

Studies the impact that musical discrimination training which incorporates models and discriminator foils, as well as modeling and imitation, has on beginning instrumental music classes. Shows that musical discrimination can be developed using these methods. Recommends further study to find effects of discrimination training on instrumental music…

Compares sex-related difference in public singing activities by examining period writings about singing activity in early 18th century Boston and current data on singing in the United States. Indicates a shift from male to female predominance, and expresses concern that choral singing involvement of both sexes will continue to wane. (LS)

Explores preschool children's movement responses to music. Using naturalistic procedures Metz generates three substantive core categories regarding the nature of movement response: conditions, interactions, and outcomes. Provides seven propositions for early childhood music education. (LS)

Assesses musicians' perceptions of beat in monotonic stimuli and attempts to define empirically the range of perceived beat tempo in music. Subjects performed a metric pulse in response to periodic stimulus tones. Results indicate a relatively narrow range within which beats are perceived by trained musicians. (LS)

Argues that, though ethnography is a powerful methodology, it has rarely been used by educational researchers. Describes the research tradition of ethnography, compares ethnography with more common educational research practices, and discusses advantages of improved commuication for both mathematics education and educational anthrpology. (PK)

Investigates whether elementary school students can construct operations of thought for integers and integer addition crucial for understanding elementary algebra. Two sixth graders were taught using a computer. Results included both students being able to construct mental operations for negating arbitrary integers and determining sign and…

Mandler's theory of emotion is suggested as a framework for investigating affective issues in problem solving. Several dimensions of the emotional states of problem solvers are specified. Implications of this framework for research on affective issues in problem solving are also discussed. (PK)

Mathematical problem-solving processes used by 27 eighth graders who had studied programming were compared to those of 27 who had not. Programmers used more systematic approaches and reviewed solutions more often than nonprogrammers but did not make more use of equations or do more planning. (PK)

Twenty secondary mathematics teachers described their thinking as they solved four proportion problems, explained how they would teach two of the problems, and solved four similar problems after having been asked to use proportional strategies. Findings indicate that less formal strategies were not often used by these teachers. (PK)

Investigated the behavior of college mathematics professors as they taught a basic course. It was found that all of the teachers typically taught the class as a unit using a teacher centered approach. Compared to less effective teachers, the more effective teachers asked more product questions and covered more content. (PK)