This study investigated whether or not receiving cognitive modification counseling would lead to reduced debilitating test anxiety, as measured by the Achievement Anxiety Test (AAT), and improved standardized test performance, as measured by the School and College Abilities Test (SCAT). The subjects were test anxious college students of high, middle, and low ability levels. It was predicted that test anxious students who received cognitive modification counseling would experience greater reductions in test anxiety than would test anxious students who did not receive such counseling. It was further predicted that concomitant with test anxiety reduction, students of middle ability would demonstrate greater improvement on a standardized aptitude test than would students of high or low ability who had received counseling or students of high, middle, or low aptitude who had not received counseling.SCAT and AAT pre-tests were administered to 776 college undergraduates, the majority of whom were freshmen. Students were designated as being of high, middle, or low ability level on the basis of their SCAT standard scores. Those students who scored within the highest 27% on the AAT were invited to participate in counseling and volunteers were randomly assigned to experimental and wait-list control groups. A total of 68 volunteer subjects' participated in the study.Experimental subjects were randomly assigned, within the limitations of their time schedules, to three counseling groups of 9-14 subjects per group. The author acted as counselor for all groups, which each met for five sessions over a period of three weeks. Meichenbaum's (1972) cognitive modification procedures were followed in all sessions.Experimental and wait-list control groups were post-tested with the AAT and an. alternate form of the SCAT. A two factor multivariate analysis of covariance design was used to analyze the data. The independent variable was counseling and no-counseling. AAT and SCAT post-test scores were the dependent variables measured, with SCAT pre-test scores serving as the covariate.Analysis of the data revealed that debilitating test anxiety was significantly (p.< .01) reduced for subjects who received cognitive modification counseling. Performance scores on the SCAT post-test, however, were the same for both counseled and wait-list control subjects. Analysis of the interaction between treatement and ability level also revealed no significant differences. Standardized test scores were essentially the same, within ability levels, for counseled and wait-list control subjects.The findings of this study support the effectiveness of cognitive modification counseling as a technique for reducing test anxiety among college students. They do not, however, support the contention that test anxiety has a detrimental effect on standardized test performance or the differential effects, reported in previous studies, of test anxiety on learning and test performance among students of high, average, and low ability. Methodological limitations encountered in the study, however, make hazardous the arrival at conclusions regarding the effect of test anxiety on test performance.The results of this study indicate that counselors may need to consider combining instruction in study techniques with cognitive modification counseling when attempting to bring about improved test performance among test anxious college students. The results also suggest that school psychologists may accept with confidence the group standardized test scores of students who report themselves to be test anxious.Recommendations for further research concerning the interactive effects of test anxiety and ability level on standardized test performance include: the use of an actual standardized test situation, i.e., a regularly scheduled administration of the Scholastic Aptitude Test; and comparison between group and individual standardized test scores of test anxious students.

The purpose of this study was to determine the amount of homework assigned to sophomore and senior high school students of White Plains High School, White Plains, New York, during a typical school day, and to determine certain parent, teacher and student reactions and expectations relative to those assignments. The subject areas for which homework assignments were studied in detail, and upon which correlations were made, were English, mathematics, social studies, and science.Instruments, specifically developed to correlate responses from three different groups were completed by 159 parents of students involved in the study, 54 teachers of the four subject areas indicated above, 505 sophomores, and 408 seniors. Two hundred and eighteen student response sheets which were electronically rejected because of deviations in responding techniques, were hand scored to obtain responses to specific questions. All other response sheets were tabulated electronically. Because of an insufficient number of responses, data gathered from the parent instruments were not used for statistical analysis.Data obtained from the various instruments were applied to the chi-square test of independence to determine rejection of null hypotheses.In applying data obtained from questionnaires to the chisquare formula, eight hypotheses were rejected and five hypotheses were not rejected. There was insufficient data to allow application of this formula to one of the hypotheses; one hypothesis, therefore, remains untested.The hypotheses that were rejected are:There is no significant difference in the amount of time that English teachers think that it takes students to complete assignments and the amount of time that students actually work on those assignments.There is no significant difference in the amount of time that mathematics teachers think that it takes students to complete assignments and the amount of time that students actually work on those assignments.There is no significant difference in the amount of time spent on homework between college-bound and non college-bound students.There is no significant difference in the amount of time spent on homework between sophomore and senior populations.There is no significant difference in the amount of time spent on homework between boy and girl populations.There is no significant difference in the amount of time spent on homework in the subject of English between sophomore and senior populations.There is no significant difference in the amount of time spent on homework in the subject of mathematics between sophomore and senior populations.There is no significant difference in the amount of time spent on homework in the subject of science between sophomore and senior populations.The hypotheses that were not rejected are:There is no significant difference in the amount of time that social studies teachers think that it takes students to complete assignments and the amount of time that students actually work on those assignments.There is no significant difference in the amount of time that homework is worked on in school between boy and girl populations.There is no significant difference in the amount of time that homework is worked on in school between sophomore and senior populations.There is no significant difference in the amount of time spent on homework in the subject area of social studies between sophomore and senior populations.The hypothesis that was not tested because of insufficient data is:There is no significant difference in the amount of time that science teachers think that it takes students to complete assignments and the amount of time that students actually work on those assignments.In general, the data indicate that girls tend to spend more time on homework than boys, sophomores spend more time on homework than seniors, college-bound students spend more time on homework than non college-bound students, and that there is a disparity between the length of time that teachers think that it will take students to complete an assignment and the length of time that students work on those assignments.

The present study was designed to investigate the effectiveness of four encoding strategies upon the retrieval of text material as measured by both immediate and delayed recognition and a recall test given in random order. Subjects included 140 college freshmen enrolled in reading and in study skills classes assigned to either a hierarchal organizing, notetaking, underlining, or repetitive reading encoding strategy. Training was given in each strategy and mastery at a criterion level of 80 percent or better was achieved. Reading comprehension scores as measured by the Nelson - Denny Reading Test, Form C were used as a covariate. An experimental passage of 1,656 words with a 12th grade reading level was administered. Findings were that there were no significant differences between treatments for immediate or delayed essay and multiple choice test scores. Reading scores correlated significantly with the dependent measures. Further, all four encoding strategies resulted in maintained test performance scores on both delayed essay and multiple choice tests. There were significant differences between immediate and delayed essay test scores for classes in favor of the reading classes. Test order did not influence test scores.

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The publications in these two volumes reflect the author's work over the past ten years in the development of teaching thinking through philosophical enquiry in primary and secondary schools. Philosophy as an essential aspect of education for all young people was first considered in the US by Professor Lipman in the early 1970s, and is now established in more than thirty countries around the world. The publications presented here represent key documents in the author's involvement in the development of a curriculum for teaching thinking through philosophical enquiry in UK schools. The publications are organised under two themes relating to teaching thinking and philosophical enquiry which are seen as vital elements of children's learning, and are presented as a contribution to curriculum development in schools, including the developing of pedagogic methods and teaching materials, and as a contribution to the professional development of teachers. Fifteen sole-author publications are included, comprising two books, excerpts from four books, and nine published papers. In addition to the publications this volume contains the author's commentary which provides an introduction to the publications and an assessment of their significance.

The principal theories of human motor skill are compared. Disagreements between them centre around the exact details of the feedback loops used for control. In order to throw some light on this problem a commonplace skill was analysed using computer techniques to both record and model the movement. Bicycle riding was chosen as an example because it places strict constraints on the freedom of the rider's actions and consequently allows a fairly simple model to be used. Given these constraints a faithful record of the delicate balancing movements of the handlebar must also be a record of the rider's actions in controlling the machine. An instrument pack, fitted with gyroscopic sensors and a handlebar potentiometer, recorded the roll, yaw and steering angle changes during free riding in digital form on a microcomputer disc. A discrete step computer model of the rider and machine was used to compare the output characteristic of various control systems with that of the experimental subjects. Since the normal bicycle design gives a measure of automatic stability it is not possible to tell how much of the handlebar movement is due to the rider and how much to the machine. Consequently a bicycle was constructed in which the gyroscopic and castor stability were removed. In order to reduce the number of sensory contributions the subjects were blindfolded. The recordings showed that the-basic method of control was a combination of a continuous delayed repeat of the roll angle rate in the handle-bar channel, with short intermittent ballistic acceleration inputs to control angle of lean and consequently direction., A review of the relevant, literature leads to the conclusion that the proposed control system is consistent with current physiological knowledge. Finally the bicycle control system discovered in the experiments is related to the theories of motor skills discussed in the second chapter.

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The recent movement to enhance critical thinking through education is not entirely new. However, it differs from an earlier tradition which was concerned broadly with the historical origins and social ramifications of critical thought. The terms of reference of the current 'thinking skills debate' are more narrowly restricted to the objectives and methods of contemporary education systems and there is a characteristic tendency to adopt features of individual psychology and 'cognitive science'. Even where such conceptual perspectives are not made explicit, there is widespread commitment to the idea that it is possible to identify general skills of thought and teach them successfully. Various programmes maintain this commitment, despite a paucity of evidence that the 'skills' thus identified transfer readily between 'cognitive domains'. A powerful and controversial counter-argument has been advanced against this conception of critical thinking skills. The main thrust of 'domain-theory' is that the 'generalist' position is incoherent; thinking skills are specific to subject-matters of 'domains' of thought, and cannot be abstracted from them, a conclusion said to be preordained by the logic of language and thought. The present thesis is that this counter-argument is substantially correct as a refutation of the theoretical basis of many current aspirations for the introduction of 'thinking skills' programmes into education. Formal representations and generalised accounts of thinking fail to address the open-endedness and creativity of genuinely critical thought. Domain-theory falters, however, in its attempt to interpret logically self-authenticating modes of thought. They are not distinguished by seamless, internal logics or methodologies, nor are they radically distinct from common modes of discourse. Indeed, specialised disciplines derive their intelligibility from this common ground of evolving linguistic meaning and imagery. It is from this, rather than from within the constraints of 'logical domains' that some of the most innovatory developments occur; the perception of analogy; the 'thought-experiment' with revolutionary implications for established theory. Paradigms of this kind have universal significance for the elucidation of critical thought.

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