The implications of this volume for education can be considered by examining the relationships between measured intelligence and the task environment provided by schooling. It seems clear that intelligence tests, when examined in terms of their use in the educational enterprise, take on a rather particular meaning—a meaning derived from the way in which the tests are validated for the purpose of predicting or enhancing school achievement. I shall elaborate upon this statement by describing and discussing several models of an educational enterprise. The models are written as flow diagrams, which are only sterile skeletal structures of the process of education, but they do serve, I hope, to make clear the focus of my remarks.

We will argue in this chapter that a major aspect of intelligence is ability to solve problems, and that careful analysis of problem-solving behavior constitutes a means of specifying many of the psychological processes that intelligence comprises. To build the argument for this approach, we will first consider some general issues surrounding the term intelligence, and then suggest why problem solving provides fertile ground for the experimental study of intelligence.

A now-recognized serious shortcoming of research on aptitude and intelligence is the lack of strong theoretical foundations based upon knowledge of human cognition. The theoretical deficit in this field was pointed out by McNemar in 1964 when he emphasized the failure of individual-difference research to “come to grips with the process, or operation, by which a given organism achieves an intellectual response [p. 881].” More recent critiques of psychometric research have underscored the necessity for understanding the cognitive processes that are assessed in aptitude measurement (e.g., Estes, 1974; Glaser, 1972; Tyler, 1976).

In this chapter, we examine some of the contributions of cognitive psychology to instruction by focusing on two aspects of performance that are acquired through learning and experience: (1) well-organized knowledge structures, and (2) the self-regulatory aspects of proficient performance. It is the transformation from novice to competent performance that concerns us here. We address some of the work on expert-novice comparisons, and related research, to illustrate current positions on what is learned in cognitive skill acquisition. We also suggest that much of the progression from novice to expert state involves mechanisms similar to those being uncovered in developmental research, and incorporate some of this research into our discussion.

Drawing on a modern neurocognitive framework, this full-color textbook introduces the entire field of cognition through an engaging narrative. Emphasizing the common neural mechanisms that underlie all aspects of perception, learning, and reasoning, the text encourages students to recognize the interconnectivity between cognitive processes. Elements of social psychology and developmental psychology are integrated into the discussion, leading students to understand and appreciate the connection between cognitive processing and social behavior. Numerous learning features provide extensive student support: chapter summaries encourage students to reflect on the main points of each chapter; end-of-chapter questions allow students to review their understanding of key topics; approximately two hundred figures, photos, and charts clarify complex topics; and suggestions for further reading point students to resources for deeper self-study. The textbook is also accompanied by eight hundred multiple-choice questions, for use before, during, and after class, which have been proven to dramatically improve student understanding and exam performance.

Education is a hot topic. From the stage of presidential debates to tonight's dinner table, it is an issue that most Americans are deeply concerned about. While there are many strategies for improving the educational process, we need a way to find out what works and what doesn't work as well. Educational assessment seeks to determine just how well students are learning and is an integral part of our quest for improved education. The nation is pinning greater expectations on educational assessment than ever before. We look to these assessment tools when documenting whether students and institutions are truly meeting education goals. But we must stop and ask a crucial question: What kind of assessment is most effective? At a time when traditional testing is subject to increasing criticism, research suggests that new, exciting approaches to assessment may be on the horizon. Advances in the sciences of how people learn and how to measure such learning offer the hope of developing new kinds of assessments-assessments that help students succeed in school by making as clear as possible the nature of their accomplishments and the progress of their learning. Knowing What Students Know essentially explains how expanding knowledge in the scientific fields of human learning and educational measurement can form the foundations of an improved approach to assessment. These advances suggest ways that the targets of assessment-what students know and how well they know it-as well as the methods used to make inferences about student learning can be made more valid and instructionally useful. Principles for designing and using these new kinds of assessments are presented, and examples are used to illustrate the principles. Implications for policy, practice, and research are also explored. With the promise of a productive research-based approach to assessment of student learning, Knowing What Students Know will be important to education administrators, assessment designers, teachers and teacher educators, and education advocates.

In this study we examined the ways in which 3 fifth-grade teachers facilitated notebook writing as a part of an inquiry of electric circuits. Analysis of videotapes of a sample of science lessons showed that teachers promoted notebook writing through explicit instructions and prompts, provided frequent opportunities for students to write, and checked to see that students had documented procedural aspects of investigations. Consistent with these observations, students' science notebooks contained records of teacher-dictated purposes and procedures and student-generated observations for each investigation. Discussions of task-related concepts and references to variations in problem-solving strategies and solutions across student groups were observed in these classrooms but were not documented in student science notebooks. Implications for using notebooks as a tool for monitoring science instruction and assessing student learning are discussed.

A significant step is occurring in cognition and instruction as researchers collaborate with practitioners to understand effective schooling and form teams of developers and designers. The collaborative design of an innovative learning environment has several purposes: (a) to test the theory that went into it, (b) to engage practitioners in learning theory and design development, and (c) to influence and revise theory and practice as a result of evaluation. This interactive context, which recognizes new learning concepts and the wisdom of the teacher. provides the opportunity for teachers to check whether their perspectives on instruction, learning, and learners are now tenable in light of recent developments in instructional psychology. These collaborative designs have enabled researchers to see what parameters limit the application of learning principles.

On September 2,1957, Lee Cronbach delivered his visionary presidential address to the American Psychological Association (APA), calling for the unification of differential and experimental psychology, the two disciplines of scientific psychology. He described the essential features of each approach to asking questions about human nature, and he strongly hinted at the benefits to be gained by unification. Cronbach was calling for linking theories and research on learning and instruction, especially the instructional treatments that logically and psychologically followed from such research, with the tradition of assessing individual differences in cognitive abilities. In his opinion, such work would probably yield information of profound educational relevance. In describing some illustrative examples, he stated, quite boldly, "Such findings . . . when replicated and explained, will carry us into an educational psychology which measures readiness for different types of teaching and which invents teaching methods to fit different types of readiness" (p. 681). He subsequently went even further and argued that this work had broader theoretical impact and meaning. "Constructs originating in differential psychology are now being tied to experimental variables. As a result, the whole theoretical picture in such an area as human abilities is changing" (p. 682).

The Model-Assisted Reasoning in Science (MARS) project created a model-centered, computer-supported sixth-grade science curriculum organized around the theme balance of forces. To help monitor effectiveness during implementation in a public middle school, individual student interviews were conducted after each of the curriculum's three sections. In each interview, students were asked to explain why a helium balloon floats up. This article describes an analysis of student responses to the balloon question and what it reveals about the impact of the curriculum. The article begins with an overview of research on children's ideas about floating and sinking. Following a description of MARS instruction, procedures used to analyze responses to the balloon question are described, and results of the analysis are presented and discussed. The article concludes by examining implications for science education.

How can knowledge of the development of expertise in a subject area inform the development of assessments in that area? How can one examine the relationship between what is anticipated from a performance assessment and what is actually seen?

The Model-based Analysis and Reasoning in Science (MARS) project is involved in developing model-centered curriculum modules for middle-school science. MARS instruction focuses on a variety of physical, pictorial, and symbolic representations of theoretical entities, providing tangible objects that students can use to think and talk about abstract concepts and links between concepts. This article examines the impact of the mass unit, the third unit of a sixth-grade curriculum module, implemented in a public school during the 1993–1994 school year. Following an overview of the unit itself, three sections describe its impact as revealed by three aspects of evaluation: (1) classroom observations of opportunities to learn afforded students through instructional activities and interactions; (2) examination of students' written work, including worksheets and free-response test performance; and (3) analysis of protocol data from individual interviews conducted at the end of each of the three main sections of the curriculum. The article concludes with a discussion of specific implications for the MARS curriculum and general implications for science instruction. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. Sci Ed82:53–91, 1998.