Interactions Among Aptitudes, Strategies, and Knowledge in Cognitive Performance

Transcription

1 Interactions Among Aptitudes, Strategies, and Knowledge in Cognitive Performance

2 Wolfgang Schneider Franz E. Weinert Editors Interactions Among Aptitudes, Strategies, and Knowledge in Cognitive Performance With 46 Illustrations Springer-Verlag New York Berlin Heidelberg London Paris Tokyo Hong Kong

3 Wolfgang Schneider Franz E. Weinert Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research Munich, FRG Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Interactions among aptitudes, strategies, and knowledge in cognitive performance/w. Schneider, F.E. Weinert, editors. p. cm. Papers presented at a conference held at the Max-Planck-Institut fiir Psychologische Forschung, Munich, July 6-8, Includes bibliographies and index. 1. Cognition in children-congresses. 2. Ability in children Congresses. 3. Problem solving in children-congresses.. 4. Cognition-Congresses. 5. Ability-Congresses. 6. Problem solving-congresses. I. Schneider, Wolfgang, II. Weinert, Franz E., III. Max-Planck-Institut fiir Psychologische Forschung. BF723.C5I '13-dc Printed on acid-free paper by Springer-Verlag New York Inc. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 1990 All rights reserved. This work may not be translated or copied in whole or in part without the written permission of the publisher (Springer-Verlag, 175 Fifth Avenue, NI~w York, NY 10010, USA), except for brief excerpts in connection with reviews or scholarly analysis. Use in connection with any form of information storage and retrieval, electronic adapation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed is forbidden. The use of general descriptive names, trade names, trademarks, etc., in this publication, even if the former are not especially identified, is not to be taken as a sign that such names, as understood by the Trade Marks and Merchandise Marks Act, may accordingly be used freely by anyone. Typeset by Caliber Design Planning, Inc ISBN-13: : / e-isbn-13:

4 Preface During the past two decades, a renewed interest in children's cognitive development has stimulated numerous research activities that have been summarized in hundreds of books. In our view, the field of memory development provides a particularly nice example of the progress that has been made so far. Since John Flavell's landmark symposium on "What Is Memory Development the Development of?" in 1971, the question of what develops has been addressed in different ways, yielding a rather complex pattern of findings. A closer look at current research outcomes reveals that ways of describing and explaining developmental changes in memory performance have changed considerably during the past 20 years. That is, while individual differences in the use of cognitive strategies were conceived of as the most important predictors of individual differences in memory performance in the 1970s, the crucial role of knowledge has been demonstrated in research conducted in the 1980s. More recent studies have repeatedly emphasized that neither changes in strategies nor knowledge alone is sufficient to explain general patterns of memory development: Here the claim is that strategies ahd different forms of knowledge (e.g., world knowledge, domain knowledge, or metacognitive knowledge) interact in rather complex ways to achieve successful memory performance. We believe that this claim can be generalized to different fields dealing with intelligent information processing. While memory development was chosen as an example because it happens to be our domain of interest, similar interactions among strategies and knowledge may determine performance in many problemsolving activities. Therefore, we decided to assemble a group of researchers active in different fields of cognitive development so that their views on current trends and the issues described above could be assessed and debated. When we invited participants for a conference on interactions among aptitudes, strategies, and knowledge in cognitive performance, we asked them to explicitly consider the issue as it applied to their areas of greatest current interest. Aptitude issues were added because aspects of individual differences in cognitive development seem to attract more attention in recent research contributions than they did a few years ago. The conference was held at the Max Planck Institute for Psychological Re-

5 vi Preface search in Munich, West Germany, on July 6 to 8, The conference was structured as a working meeting, giving sufficient time for group discussion following each paper. All papers presented during one session and belonging to the same section were additionally commented on by a discussant. With the exception of the final chapter, all chapters of this book are a direct result of these 3 days of presentation, intensive discussion, and debate representing revised versions of the papers given at the conference. We have arranged the chapters within the book into five sections: early cognitive development; thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving; interactive roles of strategies and the knowledge base in memory performance; impacts of metacognitive knowledge and strategies on cognitive performance; and interactions among aptitudes, strategies, and knowledge in (exceptional) cognitive performance. The first section focuses on possible interrelationships between knowledge and strategies in young children. In Chapter 1, Pemer argues that children's experiential awareness, that is, their understanding thalt informational access leads to knowledge, seems closely related to improvements in episodic memory. Based on a distinction between episodic and semantic access to stored information, Pemer predicts that the development of experiential awareness (around 4 years of age) should lead to great improvements in free recall. The interesting conclusion is that early signs of metacognitive knowledge (i.e., experiential awareness) may be essential for memory development. In Chapter 2, Sodian examines the relationships between young children's early conceptualizations of the mental domain (i.e., their "theory of mind") and the use of cognitive strategies. In her view, "theory changes" in children's understanding of sources of information provide the conceptual base for developmental changes in cognitive strategy use. Sodian presents interesting empirical evidence from the fields of referential communication and memory development supporting the position that young children's cognitive strategy use is constrained by their "theory" of the origins of knowledge and belief. Bullock discusses the two chapters on early cognitive development in Chapter 3. One of her aims is to construct a developmental sequence from the Pemer and Sodian papers, claiming that the developmental changes described by Sodian (i.e., the shift from empiricist to constructivist view of the mind) take place after experiential awareness is effective in young children. In addition, Bullock discusses the issue of generalizability across cognitive domains, an issue that still needs to be addressed more carefully in future research. The next section of the book concerns the interplay of aptitudes, strategies, and knowledge in the development of thinking, reasoning, and problem-solving. In the first chapter of this section, Chapter 4, Ceci and Nightingale emphasize the role of context (defined, very broadly, to include knowledge, among other things) on cognitive development. In their view, context plays a "crystallizing" role in cognition, leading to the recruitment of specific resources to try to solve a given problem. Ceci and Nightingale conceive of cognitive development as a bidirectional process: Increasingly elaborated knowledge structures facilitate the use of microlevel processes such as encoding a retrieval, which in tum un-

6 Preface Vll derpin more efficient macrolevel behaviors like thinking and reasoning. Ceci and Nightingale also treat the problem of individual differences, assuming that besides differences in central nervous system efficiency differences in knowledge structure playa major role. In Chapter 5, Hagendorf examines the role of selected determinants or contraints of cognitive development. In his view, cognitive strategies and their metacognitive correlates cannot be seen independently from knowledge-bound processes. Rather, it is the interaction of domain knowledge and specific strategies that leads to effective problem-solving. Hagendorf assures that competent cognitive performance is characterized by easy and fast access to task-relevant information, thus minimizing the problem of limited information-processing capacities. In Chapter 6, Kluwe presents an overview of his empirical research dealing with problem-solving behavior and its relation to metacognitive knowledge (i.e., conscious, verbalizable access to knowledge). As a major result, it can be shown that children of all age groups (4 to 7 years of age) included in the study are able to react appropriately to changes in task requirements (although older and younger children differ as to the quality of problem-solving activities). Kluwe demonstrates, however, that young children's appropriate responses in the problem-solving task may not be related to metacognitive, statable knowledge, as indicated by their low levels of understanding of task requirements in a metacognitive interview. It is only for the older children of the sample that appropriate responses in the problem-solving task are accompanied by high levels of understanding. In Chapter 7, Siegler shows how specific knowledge influences choices among strategies, how strategy choices in turn influence the construction of specific knowledge, and how individual differences in both initial content knowledge and cognitive style influence both choices among strategies and acquisition of further content knowledge. Siegler's empirical research on children's mental arithmetic and rehearsal strategies documents that strategy use is not a grouplevel phenomenon: Among other proves, children's self-reports seem suited to validate the new insight that individual children indeed choose among competing strategies when working on the same class of problems. As to the question of how children are able to make such adaptive strategy choices, Siegler summarizes findings based on a computer simulation model. From these results, it appears that transitions in strategy use over time are not so much based on rational calculations but produced by rather simple associative learning mechanisms. In his discussion of the four chapters on thinking, reasoning, and problemsolving, Strube notes that neither architectural limits of the information-processing system nor aspects of metacognitive knowledge seem to playa major role. Undoubtedly, most papers focus on the interplay of strategies and domainspecific knowledge. In Strube's view, the authors do differ markedly in what they conceive of as components of a "strategy," an issue that has been discussed controversially for some time now. Strube emphasizes that in both Ceci and Nightingale's and Siegler's chapters the concept of cognitive style is Tecon-

7 VIti Preface structed from an information-processing point of view, thus overcoming the limitations of the trait concept of cognitive style that was fairly dominant in the 1970s. The third section focuses on interactions between knowledge and strategies in memory development, a research area that has expanded considerably during the last few years. In Chapter 9, Muir-Broaddus and Bjorklund explore the fit between views of memory development and data concerning individual differences. As to memory development, Muir-Broaddus and Bjorklund basically assume that age-related changes in children's free recall and organizational strategies are primarily due to age-related differences in content knowledge. They provide ample empirical evidence showing that the knowledge base not only affects strategy use but also has nonstrategic effect~, on memory performance. Muir-Broaddus and Bjorklund further demonstrate that memory differences between children with different learning abilities (e.g., learning disabled versus nondisabled children, gifted versus nongifted children) cannot be explained by differences in strategies or general intellectual functioning alone, but are mainly due to individual differences in the knowledge base. In Chapter 10, Rabinowitz and McAuley examine the respective roles of conceptual knowledge and strategies in memory performance. In their review of information-processing models, conceptualizations that conceive of the mind as computer are compared with connectionist models that use the metaphor of mind as brain. Rabinowitz and McAuley argue that both models do not seem able to capture adequately the dynamic nature of conceptual knowledge and the control of processing afforded by strategies. Their suggestion is that a hybrid model of information-processing is needed to understand conceptual and strategic processing. In the second part of the chapter, a simulation study assessing the implications for positing an active processing component within the knowledge structures is described. Results indicate a symbiotic relationship between strategies and the development of knowledge structures. In Chapter 11, van der Meer examines the role of conceptual structures of knowledge in memory performance. Van der Meer assumes that the flexibility of conceptual knowledge structures is determined by their vertical and horizontal dynamics. While vertical dynamics operate through generallization principles or mechanisms generating superordinate/subordinate concepts, horizontal dynamics of knowledge are based on the formation of action-related sequences of events. Van der Meer discusses the horizontal dynamics of knowledge structures in more detail, presenting empirical research that aimed at identifying general strategies underlying the horizontal dynamics of conceptual knowledge structures. She concludes from this research that both invariants and developmental changes concerning the horizontal dynamics of knowledge structures can be observed, and that age- and ability-related changes in strategy use: are closely linked to the development of conceptual knowledge structures. Ornstein, in his discussion of the three chapters, emphasizes that our understanding of how knowledge "works" is severely limited. We do not know much about how children's knowledge is organized, how it changes with age, and

8 Preface ix how it affects memory performance (e.g., how to differentiate between knowledge effects and strategy effects). In Ornstein's view, these questions can serve as a framework to evaluate the contributions of the authors. As a major result of his evaluative approach, Ornstein concludes that the authors succeeded in the difficult task of taking us to new levels of understanding. Although many issues are yet to be resolved, the three chapters contribute substantially for our thinking about knowledge-strategy relationships in that they go far beyond the stage of simple demonstrations of knowledge-base effects. The next section of the book concerns the effects of metacognitive knowledge and strategies on cognitive performance. In Chapter 13, Borkowski and Turner examine the role of procedural metacognitive knowledge, that is, executive functioning or self-regulation, on strategy use and cognitive performance. The major argument developed in this chapter is that selected components of metacognition facilitate and augment strategy deployment across domains, and thus constitute the essence of general problem-solving skills. Borkowski and Turner assume that self-regulatory processes are crucial for maintenance and transfer of strategies, giving metacognition its transsituational applicability. The model of metacognition presented by Borkowski and Turner further emphasizes the important role of motivational correlates of metacognition like self-esteem or attributional beliefs. It is assumed that both executive processes and attributional beliefs are particularly important for producing problem-solving skills. Kurtz, in Chapter 14, broadens the perspective by illustrating ways in which culture mediates children's cognitive and metacognitive development. In the first part of the chapter, Kurtz reviews current metacognitive theory, showing possible interfaces among cognitive, metacognitive, and motivational factors. The second part examines environmental influences on cognitive development. Kurtz emphasizes long-term effects of parenting styles on children's cognitive development and also provides evidence for the important role of teachers for children's emerging metacognitive awareness. Results of cross-cultural research reported in the last part of Kurtz's chapter provide further evidence for the necessity of studying metacognition as part of a complex system, including cognitive and motivational variables. In Chapter 15, Pressley, Wood, and Woloshyn analyze the effects of elaborative interrogation (i.e., asking why-questions) on the acquisition of factual knowledge. Pressley et al. review empirical research showing that children and adults are more likely to use prior knowledge in new situations if they have been trained to activate and apply what they know, and that elaborative interrogation can be successfully used to stimulate elaborative processing. In view of their encouraging results, Pressley et al. emphasize the need for more research on self-regulated elaborative interrogation, which is seen as a robust and efficient method of promoting acquisition of factual knowledge. Carr discusses the three preceding chapters in Chapter 16. In her view, the chapters presented in this section document a recent shift by developmental psychologists from a strictly cognitive, unicomponential approach to intellectual development toward an approach induding multiple, often noncognitive com-

9 x Preface ponents like self-esteem and attributional beliefs. Carr additionally emphasizes the necessity of exploring the changing roles of various cognitive and motivational factors across the life span, thus voting for a life-span developmental approach. The fifth and final section of the book deals with interactions among aptitudes, strategies, and knowledge in cognitive performance. In Chapter 17, Schneider, Korkel, and Weinert focus on research exploring the impact of domain-specific knowledge on text processing in highly articulated domains. The major issues addressed in this chapter concern (1) developmental differences as to how experts' knowledge is represented, (2) the role of metacognition in explaining performance differences between experts and novices, and (3) the relevance of general aptitudes for experts' performance on domain-related cognitive processing tasks. Schneider et al. conclude from their studies on soccer expertise that individual differences in metacognitive knowledge contribute to soccer experts' performance differences. On the other hand, their findings show that overall low aptitude can be compensated by domain-specific expertise. In Chapter 18, Staszewski gives an impressive report on the progress being made in understanding the cognitive structures and processes underlying human expertise. As Staszewski sees it, any adequate theory of expert performance should describe expert knowledge in terms of its content, organization, and representation, and then describe how an expert operates upon his or her knowledge to achieve exceptionally high levels of performance. This is exactly what Staszewski does in his chapter, describing the effects of an extensive training program that eventually enabled a subject with normal abilities and the appropriate knowledge base to become an exceptionally skilled mnemonist. Finegrained analyses of the subject's encoding and retrieval activities reveal that his exceptional memory skill results from the interaction of practice, knowledge, and effective strategies. In the final chapter of the book, Schneider and Weinert discuss what they think are the persistent problems and the major achievements in the area. In an attempt to integrate the issues raised in the various chapters, Schneider and Weinert note that conceptualization problems due to the fuzziness of constructs still await resolution. Schneider and Weinert emphasize, however, that the contributions to this volume represent important achievements in the field, despite the problems of conceptualization. In particular, major progress concerns the development of a theoretical framework suited to model interactions among aptitudes, knowledge components, and cognitive strategies. In Schneider's and Weinert's view, future research should specifically address the issue of generalizability across domains, an issue discussed controversially in this volume. Munich, West Germany WOLFGANG SCHNEIDER FRANZ E. WEINERT

10 Acknowledgments We would like to thank a number of people for their work on the symposium and their assistance in preparing this book. We are indebted to Gabi Golling, Mariele Kremling, Heidi Schulze, and Simone Stief for their help in planning the meeting and for taking care of arrangements during the symposium itself. Heidi Schulze further typed or retyped a number of the final chapters in the book and did it extremely well. Merry Bullock, Ron Kinney, Elizabeth Kulcsar, Mike Pressley, and Bob Siegler took over the difficult job of editing those chapters written by German contributors. We owe them a considerable debt of gratitude. Finally, we would like to thank Anik de Ribaupierre and Marion Perlmutter who served as discussants at the conference but for various reasons were unable to contribute to this book. We found their comments to be extremely valuable, stimulating some of the discussion provided in the last chapter of this book.

11 Contents Preface Acknow ledgments Contributors V Xl xvii PART I Early Cognitive Development Experiential Awareness and Children's Episodic Memory 3 JOSEF PERNER Experiential Awareness 3 Episodic Memory 6 On Saying That: Monitoring Reality 9 References 11 2 Understanding Sources of Information: Implications for Early Strategy Use 12 BEA TE SODIAN Understanding of Inference as Source of Knowledge 13 Understanding How Perception and Communication Function as Sources of Knowledge 18 Conclusions 19 References 20 3 Discussion: Theory of Mind 22 MERRY BULLOCK Introduction 22 Comments on Pemer: Three Questions 23 Comments on Sodian: How Global Are the Effects? 24 References 25 PART II Thinking, Reasoning, and Problem-Solving 4 The Entanglement of Knowledge and Process in Development: Toward a Tentative Framework for Understanding Individual Differences in Intellectual Development STEPHEN J. CECI and NARINA NUNEZ NIGHTINGALE Some Definitional Issues A Brief Historical Excursion

12 xiv Contents A Broadened View of Domain-Specificity 37 Some Descriptive Data 40 In Conclusion 43 References 44 5 Cognitive Performance and Developmental Constraints 47 HERBERT HAGENDORF A Tentative Set of Dimensions of Change 47 Structural Similarity of Representations in Development 49 Power of Organized Units in Inference Tasks 51 Strategy Use and Information-Processing Capacity 53 Prior Knowledge and Cognitive Performance 55 Concluding Remarks 56 References 57 6 Understanding and Problem-Solving 59 RAINER H. KLUWE Introduction 59 Problem-Solving Behavior Under Different Conditions (Study I) 60 Statable Knowledge About the Cognitive Demands of Different Problem- Solving Conditions (Study II) 63 Conclusions 69 References 71 7 How Content Knowledge, Strategies, and Individual Differences Interact to Produce Strategy Choices 74 ROBERT S. SIEGLER Adaptive Value of Strategy Choices 77 Models of Strategy Choice Based on Rational Calculations 80 The Distributions of Associations Model 81 Transitions in Strategy Use over Time 83 Individual Differences in Strategy Choices 84 References 88 8 Explaining Children's Problem-Solving: Current Trends 90 GERHARD STRUBE The Influence of Metacognition Is Waning 90 Processing Capacity Influences Strategy Choice 91 Automatic and Controlled Processing 91 Cognitive Style Is Back? 93 Focusing on the Individual in Context 93 Issues Still out of Reach 94 References 94 PART III Interactive Roles of Strategies and the Knowledge Base in Memory Performance 9 Developmental and Individual Differences in Children's Memory Strategies: The Role of Knowledge 99 JACQUELINE E. MUIR-BROADDUS and DAVID F. BJORKLUND Efficiency of Mental Processing 99 Nature and Organization of the Knowledge Base 100

13 Contents xv Effects of the Knowledge Base on Children's Memory 103 Memory Differences Between Children With Different Learning Abilities 106 Knowledge Base and Novelty III Conclusion and Implications for Education 112 References Conceptual Knowledge Processing: An Oxymoron? II7 MITCHELL RABINOWITZ and ROBERT McAULEY Introduction 117 Metaphors of Mind 118 Conceptual Knowledge Processing 122 Discussion 130 References Dynamics of Knowledge Structures: Some Underlying Strategies 134 ELKE v AN DER MEER Conceptual Structures of Knowledge 134 The Flexibility of Conceptual Knowledge Structures 135 The General Approach 138 The Developmental Approach 139 The Differential Approach 142 Conclusions 144 References Knowledge and Strategies: A Discussion 147 PETER A. ORNSTEIN Introduction 147 Questions About Knowledge 148 The Chapters 150 An Overview 155 References 155 PART IV Impacts of Metacognitive Knowledge and Strategies on Cognitive Performance 13 Transsituational Characteristics of Metacognition 159 JOHN G. BORKOWSKI and LISA A. TURNER A Model of Metacognition 159 Executive Functioning 161 Self-Regulation in Gifted Children 162 General Strategy Knowledge, Self-Attributions, and Beliefs About Mind 169 Executive Processes and Attributional Beliefs: An Integration 173 References Cultural Influences on Children's Cognitive and Metacognitive Development 177 BETH E. KURTZ Introduction 177 Environmental Influences on Cognitive Development 180 Research Perspectives 185 Understanding How Children Learn 192 References 194

14 xvi Contents 15 Elaborative Interrogation and Facilitation of Fact Learning: Why Having a Knowledge Base Is One Thing and Using It Is Quite Another 200 MICHAEL PRESSLEY, EILEEN WOOD and VERA WOLOSHYN Adult Studies 203 Child Studies 211 Discussion 217 References The Role of Context and Development From a Life-Span Perspective 222 MARTHA CARR Critical Tasks From a Life-Span Perspective 223 Special Populations From a Life-Span Perspective 226 References 229 PART V Interactions Among Aptitudes, Strategies, and Knowledge in Cognitive Performance 17 Expert Knowledge, General Abilities, and Text Processing 235 WOLFGANG SCHNEIDER, JOACHIM KORKEL and FRANZ E. WEINERT Introduction 235 Expert Knowledge and Text Processing 237 Relations Between Domain-Specific Knowledge and Metacognitive Knowledge 242 General Abilities and Domain-Specific Knowledge 245 Concluding Remarks 248 References Exceptional Memory: The Influence of Practice and Knowledge on the Development of Elaborative Encoding Strategies 252 JAMES J. STASZEWSKI Exceptional Memory 253 Theoretical Analysis of Skilled Memory 255 The Influence of Contextual Encodings on Serial Recall: An Experiment 274 General Conclusions 280 References The Role of Knowledge, Strategies, and Aptitudes in Cognitive Performance: Concluding Comments 286 WOLFGANG SCHNEIDER and FRANZ E. WEINERT Persistent Problems 287 Major Accomplishments 289 The Impact of Motivational, Educational, and Cultural Factors 294 Individual Differences and Aptitude Issues 296 Future Research Perspectives 298 References 300 Index 303

15 Contributors DAVID F. BJORKLUND, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA JOHN G. BORKOWSKI, Department of Psychology, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA MERRY BULLOCK, Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, 8000 Miinchen, FRG MARTHA CARR, Department of Educational Psychology, University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602, USA STEPHEN J. CECI, Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14853, USA HERBERT HAGENDORF, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, 1020 Berlin, GDR RAINER H. KLUWE, Universitat der Bundeswehr Hamburg, Fachbereich Padagogik, 2000 Hamburg, FRG JOACHIM KORKEL, Evangelische Stiftungsfachhochschule Niirnberg, 8500 Niirnberg, FRG BETH E. KURTZ, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA ROBERT McAuLEY, School of Education, University of Illinois at Chicago, Chicago, IL 60680, USA JACQUELINE E. MUIR-BROADDUS, Department of Psychology, Florida Atlantic University, Boca Raton, FL 33431, USA NARINA NUNEZ NIGHTINGALE, Department of Psychology, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA PETER A. ORNSTEIN, Department of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC 27514, USA JOSEF PERNER, Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, University of Sussex, Brighton, East Sussex BNl 9QG, England; Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, 8000 Miinchen, FRG MICHAEL PRESSLEY, Department of Human Development/Institute of Child Study, University of Maryland, College Park, MD 20742, USA MITCHELL RABINOWITZ, School of Education, Fordham University at Lincoln Center, New York, NY 10023, USA

16 xviii Contributors WOLFGANG SCHNEIDER, Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, 8000 Miinchen, FRG ROBERT S. SIEGLER, Department of Psychology, Carnegie-Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213, USA BEA TE SODIAN, Institut fur Empirische Padagogik und Padagogische Psychologie, Universitat Miinchen, 8000 Miinchen, FRG JAMES J. STASZEWSKI, Department of Psychology, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC 29208, USA GERHARD STRUBE, Psychologisches Institut der Ruhr-Universitat Bochum, 4630 Bochum, FRG LISA A. TURNER, Department of Psychology, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA 70122, USA ELKE VAN DER MEER, Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin, 1020 Berlin, GDR FRANZ E. WEINERT, Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research, 8000 Miinchen, FRG VERA WOLOSHYN, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London, N6A 5C2, Canada EILEEN WOOD, Department of Psychology, Faculty of Social Science, University of Western Ontario, London, N6A 5C2, Canada