We present a detailed look at children's learning about the balance scale. In our study, as children explored the balance scale, they acquired and built on special-case and context-specific ...knowledge. Before making general and context-independent observations, they made more local observations. We contrast our findings with two previous analyses of children's knowledge Inhelder and Piaget, 1958; Siegler, 1978 about the balance scale in light of assumptions about the nature of knowledge and its acquisition. Educational implications of all three analyses are considered.
The purpose of this study was to identify some of the experiences that might lead to a frequently noted change in the form of young children's problem solving: the transition from less to more ...systematic strategies. The effects of 2 types of experiences that were hypothesized to arise frequently in young children's everyday lives were examined: receiving encouragement from other people to take more analytic attitudes, and encountering problems with perceptually salient differences on a relevant dimension. Both types of experiences were found to lad to an initial increase in the use of the systematic strategies. Encouragement to take an analytic attitude also led to continued use of the systematic strategies on a posttest, 1 week later, when no special instructions were given. The systematic strategy that most of the 3-year-olds adopted, rule 1', was related to but distinct from the rule 1 strategy generally adopted by older children in previous experiments.
Weighing Milk Cartons Willcutt, Bob
The Arithmetic teacher,
02/1980, Volume:
27, Issue:
6
Journal Article
Here is a new version of a standard old problem: You are given nine milk cartons and are told that one of the nine cartons weighs slightly less than the other eight. If you use a balance scale, how ...can you find the one carton that weighs less than the other eight? What is the fewest number of weighings that you will need to make in order to always find the Light carton?
This paper addresses the problem of construct validity in measures of life satisfaction and well-being through an analysis of unsolicited comments made by respondents during face-to-face interviews. ...This serendipitous examination focuses on two established indicators: The Life Satisfaction Index A and the Affect Balance Scale. The observations volunteered by respondents cast doubt upon the construct validity of a number of the items in each of the scales as measures of the subjective states they purport to index. The findings indicate avenues for improving existing scales but the author concludes that greater use of qualitative approaches may be the most constructive solution.
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