This volume is a direct result of an international conference that brought together a number of scholars from Europe and the United States to discuss their ideas and research about cognitive and instructional processes in history and the social sciences. As such, it fills a major gap in the study of how people learn and reason in the context of particular subject matter domains and how instruction can be improved in order to facilitate better learning and reasoning. Previous cognitive work on subject matter learning has been focused primarily upon mathematics and physics; the present effort provides the first such venture examining the history and social science domains from a cognitive perspective.
The different sections of the book cover topics related to comprehension, learning, and instruction of history and the social sciences, including:
*the development of some social sciences concepts,
*the teaching of social sciences -- problems and questions arising from this cognitive perspective of learning,
*the comprehension and learning from historical texts,
*how people and students understand historical causality and provide explanations of historical events, and
*the deduction processes involved in reasoning about social sciences contents.
This volume will be useful for primary and secondary school teachers and for cognitive and instructional researchers interested in problem solving and reasoning, text comprehension, domain-specific knowledge acquisition and concept development.

This double issue of Discourse Processes discusses argumentation in psychology. Topics covered include: the origins and nature of arguments; the development of argumentative discourse skill; the influence of oral discussion on written argument; changing stances on abortion during case-based reasoning tasks; and student evaluations of scientific arguments. The contributors include N.L. Stein, E.R. Albro, S.K. Brem, R.S. Bernas, M. Felton and R.C. Anderson.

This volume is a direct result of an international conference that brought together a number of scholars from Europe and the United States to discuss their ideas and research about cognitive and instructional processes in history and the social sciences. As such, it fills a major gap in the study of how people learn and reason in the context of particular subject matter domains and how instruction can be improved in order to facilitate better learning and reasoning. Previous cognitive work on subject matter learning has been focused primarily upon mathematics and physics; the present effort provides the first such venture examining the history and social science domains from a cognitive perspective.
The different sections of the book cover topics related to comprehension, learning, and instruction of history and the social sciences, including:
*the development of some social sciences concepts,
*the teaching of social sciences -- problems and questions arising from this cognitive perspective of learning,
*the comprehension and learning from historical texts,
*how people and students understand historical causality and provide explanations of historical events, and
*the deduction processes involved in reasoning about social sciences contents.
This volume will be useful for primary and secondary school teachers and for cognitive and instructional researchers interested in problem solving and reasoning, text comprehension, domain-specific knowledge acquisition and concept development.

Based on extensive reasoning acquisition research, this volume provides theoretical and empirical considerations of the reasoning that occurs during the course of everyday personal and professional activities. Of particular interest is the text's focus on the question of how such reasoning takes place during school activities and how students acquire reasoning skills.

Based on extensive reasoning acquisition research, this volume provides theoretical and empirical considerations of the reasoning that occurs during the course of everyday personal and professional activities. Of particular interest is the text's focus on the question of how such reasoning takes place during school activities and how students acquire reasoning skills.

Previous studies of foreign policy decision making have largely focused on the choice among specified options rather than the prior question of how the options were specified in the first place. Such 'problem representation' is the focus of this volume. How do the game theorists' options and utilities come about? Concretely, for example, how and why in the Cuban missile crisis were blockade, air strike, and invasion chosen as options? To answer such questions, the editors contend the representation of the problem to which the options are a response, the determinants of that representation, and its ramifications must all be analyzed. The contributors to the volume consider these issues both conceptually and empirically, employing the methods of both international relations and political psychology.

Previous studies of foreign policy decision making have largely focused on the choice among specified options rather than the prior question of how the options were specified in the first place. Such 'problem representation' is the focus of this volume. How do the game theorists' options and utilities come about? Concretely, for example, how and why in the Cuban missile crisis were blockade, air strike, and invasion chosen as options? To answer such questions, the editors contend the representation of the problem to which the options are a response, the determinants of that representation, and its ramifications must all be analyzed. The contributors to the volume consider these issues both conceptually and empirically, employing the methods of both international relations and political psychology.