Diagram information and its organisation in memory: Exploring the role of skill and experience

Two contrasting methods of investigation were used to characterise the basis upon which the mental representation of a scientific diagram was organised in individuals having different levels of experience and skill in the interpretation of this type of diagram. Each of these methods is described and several important methodological issues are discussed. In the first method (the Card Sort method), subjects performed a three-stage grouping of diagram elements in a card sorting task that produced an hierarchical ordering of the information constituting the diagram. In the second method (the Copy-Recall method), subjects copied then produced drawn recall of a given diagram. Measurements of the sequence in which diagram elements were produced and the time intervals between each production were used to infer the underlying cognitive structuring involved in the mental representation of the diagram information. Questions are raised concerning the way resulting data can be analysed and interpreted most effectively. Specializations: Mental representation and processing of scientific diagrams, characteristics of explanatory diagrams, visual aspects of problem solving, instructional design.     

In search of a consistency model for evaluation of student performance in nontraditional education

In nontraditional education we believe that learning how to learn should be the major objective. Helping students learn how to learn should be a major teaching objective and a major teaching skill. This skill involves helping a student recognize that learning involves personal change and that no one is so knowledgeable and so skilled that he or she need not learn. One of the major problems in learning how to learn for educators is being able to play a concurrent role—that of an evaluator and that of an academic advisor. Inherent in this double role is the concept that an evaluator should provide a learning experience that is planned as an integral and continuous part of a student's education. Evaluation processes, both in planning and implementation, should be consistent with knowledge, values, and goals of nontraditional education. Their basis should be a theory of adult learning.