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This study examines the effects of maternal teaching style on the developing problem-solving abilities of deaf and hearing preschool children. Mothers and children from three matched groups, hearing mother-deaf child, hearing mother-hearing child, and deaf mother-deaf child, were videotaped while the mother taught the child to construct a small pyramid from 21 interlocking blocks and again when the child attempted the task independently. The tapes were coded and analyzed to examine maternal instructional style and subsequent independent child performance. The mothers in the deaf mother-deaf child and hearing mother-hearing child dyads used appropriate scaffolding behavior significantly more often than the other mothers; their children were significantly more adept and independent problem-solvers than the deaf children of hearing mothers. The more contingent the mother's instructions, the more independent and successful child. Scaffolding is discussed in terms of its benefits for instructing deaf children.

This dissertation describes the personal problem-solving language used by grade five students as they solve mathematical problems. Student classroom interactions were audio-taped and filmed during the course of the 199711998 school year. Ethnographic methods and a qualitative research approach were used for gathering, analyzing and interpreting the data. The questions that guided the study were: (1) how children solve problems and (2) what tools and symbols systems do they use. The purpose was to understand the problem-solving process better. The underlying assumptions were that: (1) most students can generate their own strategies and problem-solving theories; (2) many students can solve complex mathematical problems. The findings revealed that students generate problem-solving strategies and symbol systems that resemble the tools that they chose to use and their individual learning styles. Most students needed to talk about their proceedings and often used a personalized language form and nomenclatures that were uniquely creative as place holders for the more exact terminology, which replaced the invented language. The data also captured highly creative moments when the students experienced a heightened sense of awareness and sensibility while they explored their problem spaces. It was also evident that there is a transfer from the child's personal problem-solving style, choice of tools and creative symbol systems into his unique representation of the problem's solution. This transfer supports Vygotskian notions that language mediates thought and that social interaction mediates language.

Concept mapping in college-level physics was investigated. The study was carried out in three parts. First, an attempt was made to validate concept mapping as a method of evaluating student learning at the junior college level (ages 16-21). Several measures were found to be sensitive to differences in students' achievement. Second, the effectiveness of concept mapping as an instructional strategy was investigated. It was found that the strategy led to improvement in multistep problem-solving performance but not in performance on single step problems. Third, the concept maps made by experts in the field were compared with the maps made by high achieving and average achieving students to see if this is yet another way in which high performance and expertise are related. It was found that the high achieving students made maps which more nearly resembled the maps made by experts than those made by average achieving students.

The purpose was to examine the domain specificity of the self-regulatory skills of children with Developmental Coordination Disorder (DCD) compared to their peers without DCD. Participants included 10 children with DCD and 10 without. A sport specific problem-solving task (shooting at a hockey net) and an educational problem-solving task (peg solitaire) were compared. Zimmerman's (2000) social cognitive model of self-regulation was used; it has three phases (a) forethought, (b) performance or volitional control, and (c) self-reflection. Participants were taught to think aloud during both tasks to access cognitive processes (Ericsson & Simon, 1984/1993). Codes were developed under five major categories, (a) goals, (b) knowledge, (c) emotion, (d) monitoring, and (e) evaluation. Verbalizations were transcribed and coded using the NUD*IST Vivo software. Results indicated that children with DCD have decreased knowledge in the motor domain, may have general difficulties with planning and set less challenging goals. The findings also support previous research regarding their negative emotions attached to motor tasks.

There has been a growing trend towards integrating persons with disabilities into community life. Mathematics is important to the success of such an initiative, but very little attention has been given to this area. This paper presents the results of a four-year study examining the strategies used by intellectually disabled children when adding numbers. / At the beginning of the study, all subjects could count to 10 and recognize numbers to 10, but most could not add. Subjects were evaluated each year on their ability to solve addition problems with sums no greater than nine. Subjects were divided into three groups based on first year results. Those in group 1 demonstrated no knowledge of addition, group 2 used the erroneous strategy of adding one to an addend, and group 3 included children with Down Syndrome who used a variety of strategies. / Over the next three years, subjects, in general, progressed in a manner similar to nondisabled children with regard to strategies, the order in which they were developed, error patterns, and the order in which number pairs were memorized.

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The questions investigated concerned the social problem solving skills of 41 learning disabled (LD) students compared to 41 typical students in grades 10, 11, and 12. Since (a) LD students are generally described as impulsive, lacking in social judgment, and unaware of consequences; since (b) these social problems have been described as some of the most devastating for LD students as they interfere with their everyday adaptation to living; since (c) social decision making has been found to be somewhat correlated with mental and emotional health and the self-concept; since (d) studies have indicated a range of from 26% to 73% of the criminal population have a Learning Disability - indicating a difficulty in adapting to society; it appears very important that we find ways to improve the social adaptation of LD persons. This study was a beginning of research with this goal in mind.The questions investigated were: 1) are LD students as good as Non-LD in social problem solving, as measured by the number of solutions they can spontaneously generate to presented social situations; 2) do LD students tend to select the same categories of response to social conflicts as non-LD students, as measured by their choices from a group of predetermined solutions to the same presented social conflict situations; are LD student's self evaluations of their problem solving ability as accurate as the self evaluations of non-LD student's as measured by their responses on a revised version of the Problem Solving Inventory and their ability to generate solutions to problem situations. First, the social situations, revisions of situations from the MeansEnds Problem Solving test, were read by the tester while the student followed along with a printed copy of the text. The student was informed as to what he preferred to do and what he was expected to do. After hearing the social conflict, he was then instructed, "In one minute, tell me as many ways as you can that you would deal with this this situation." Thus, no inappropriate behaviors were suggested. Second, the student was presented the same social situations in the same manner. He was then presented eight choices. He was told, "From the following choices, circle the letters next to the four choices you would most likely use to deal with this situation". The goal of the experiment was to determine if the LD person would choose the same types of strategies for adapting as the typical student. As there were no pre and post tests, the names of the individuals were not required, only whether or not they were LD and possibly their grade level. This would guarantee confidentiality. Tests were administered individually for generating solutions and in small groups where answers could be written.Next, the experiment attempted to determine if there is a relationship between one's ability to generate solutions and their self-rating as problem solvers. A modified version of Heppner's Problem Solving Inventory was prepared. It was believed that a statistical analysis of the two factors using LD and Non-LD students would give an indication of this relationship.The documents used in the test were: 1. the revision of the Means-Ends Problem Solving Test and 2. the revision of the Problem Solving Inventory. These are attached to this document in the appendices.The results of the study indicated that there is no statistically significant difference between the LD and the Non-LD students ability to generate solutions to the problem solving situations. There was no statistically significant difference in the self-evaluated problem solving ability of the two groups. There was a statistically very significant difference in the type of response category selected by the LD students when compared with non-LD students. / Department of Special Education

This research adopts a sociocultural framework (Vygotsky, 1978) to investigate how multilingual children express their mathematical reasoning during collaborative problem solving. The topic is important because North America is becoming increasingly multicultural, and according to mathematics teachers this has complicated the challenges of teaching and learning mathematics. Many educators assume that children should be competent in the language of instruction before they engage with mathematical content (Civil, 2008; Gorgorió & Planas, 2001). A review of recent research in this area challenges the idea that multilingual students need to have mastered the official language of instruction prior to learning mathematics (Barwell, 2005; Civil, 2008; Moschkovich, 2007). These researchers demonstrate that the knowledge of the language of instruction is only one aspect of becoming competent in mathematics. My research was designed to build on the findings of the current research on multilingual children’s reasoning in order to more fully understand how multilingual children express their mathematical understanding and reasoning. For this study, two multilingual families, each with 3 children between the ages of 8 and 12, participated in a mathematical problem-solving activity. Findings show the children’s mathematical reasoning was evidence-based drawing on mathematical knowledge and world knowledge.