Deck 7: Knowledge Construction

Question 1

Which one of the following examples best illustrates the concept of distributed cognition?

A)Edie, Linda, and DeWayne discuss various ways they might solve a physics problem.
B)Mark, Jason, and Leanne each solve one-third of their homework problems and then share their results with the other two.
C)Rhonda watches her favorite situation comedy while simultaneously eating an apple and doing her homework.
D)Reginald thinks about the various plots he might use in the short story he is writing and then eventually chooses one of them.

Answer 1

Edie, Linda, and DeWayne discuss various ways they might solve a physics problem.

Question 2

Which one of the following scenarios best reflects the basic idea of individual constructivism?

A)A student practices playing the F major scale on his violin until he can play it perfectly.
B)Four students in a study group divide the day's reading assignment into four sections.Each student reads a section and then teaches the material to the other group members.
C)A student tries to make sense of a poorly written and confusing magazine article.
D)Two students discuss possible interpretations of the proverb, "We only know the worth of water when the well is dry."

Answer 2

A student tries to make sense of a poorly written and confusing magazine article.

Question 3

Distributed cognition can best be described as:

A)A student choosing one problem-solving strategy over other possible strategies
B)A student trying to accomplish several different tasks simultaneously
C)A group of students dividing up the various parts of a task that need to be done
D)A group of students thinking about a task or problem together

Answer 3

A group of students thinking about a task or problem together

Question 4

From the perspective of knowledge construction, three of the following are possible reasons why classroom dialogues help students better understand classroom subject matter.Which one is not necessarily a benefit of classroom dialogues?

A)Students are exposed to the views of other people-views that may be more accurate than their own.
B)Students must clarify their ideas sufficiently to explain them to their classmates.
C)Students may discover flaws in their own ideas and thoughts about a topic.
D)Students are more likely to form visual images related to their ideas when they describe those ideas to others.

Question 5

Which one of these is the best example of overgeneralization?

A)Uri times himself when he swims laps because he wants to improve his speed.
B)Russ takes his teddy bear out for a walk because he has heard that pets need exercise.
C)Yolanda thinks she should not go to medical school because she wants to have children and, "You can't be a mom and a doctor, too."
D)Barbara wants to take four science classes her first semester in college because she intends to major in science.

Question 6

Three of the following statements reflect cognitive psychologists' beliefs about the process of knowledge construction.Which statement is not consistent with their beliefs?

A)People can construct meaning from a situation even when they have no prior knowledge that they can relate to the situation.
B)The meanings that people construct from a situation depend on the knowledge that they bring to bear on that situation.
C)The internal "realities" that people construct are sometimes different from the realities of the external world.
D)Different people will often construct different meanings from the same situation.

Question 7

Three of the following are benefits of classroom discussions.Which one is not a typical benefit of discussing information in class?

A)Class discussions may promote better argumentation skills.
B)Class discussions encourage students to organize their thoughts about a topic.
C)Class discussions promote more rapid learning of classroom subject matter.
D)Discussions about controversial topics encourage students to reevaluate their own views.

Question 8

The surest sign that students have mastered a concept is that they:

A)Tend to overgeneralize rather than undergeneralize
B)Tend to undergeneralize rather than overgeneralize
C)Can accurately identify at least one example and one nonexample of the concept
D)Can consistently distinguish between examples and nonexamples of the concept

Question 9

Which one of the following scenarios best reflects the basic idea of social constructivism?

A)Two students discuss possible interpretations of the proverb, "We only know the worth of water when the well is dry."
B)A teacher assigns a laboratory activity using cumbersome equipment that students can operate successfully only by working in pairs.
C)When a student borrows a classmate's marker without asking and then forgets to put the cap back on, leaving it dried out and useless by the following morning, her teacher reminds her of one of the class rules: "Respect your classmates' property."
D)Four students in a study group divide a reading assignment into four sections.Each student reads a section and then teaches the material to the other group members.

Question 10

Mr.Janus tells his class, "For tomorrow's class, read pages 23 to 49 in your geography book." Three of the following students are demonstrating the process of construction in their perceptions of what their teacher has said.Which student is not?

A)Anthony thinks the teacher is saying "history book."
B)Bonita doesn't hear what the teacher says because she's thinking about something else.
C)Christopher "hears" the teacher say "pages 33 to 39" because the student next to him is coughing loudly.
D)Dena understands the teacher even though the teacher speaks with a slight accent and mispronounces the word geography.

Question 11

Which one of the following is an example of undergeneralization? The concept in question is in italics.

A)Fred thinks that spiders are insects.
B)Ivan thinks that birds are not animals.
C)Lenny thinks that "you" is a noun.
D)Oscar thinks that "you" is not a noun.

Question 12

Morris is trying to remember how to spell the word broccoli.He retrieves the first three letters B R O)and the last three O L I), then assumes that the "kuh" sound in the middle of the word must be a K.He writes "brokoli" on his paper.Morris' process of remembering how to spell the word in this case, incorrectly)illustrates which one of the following concepts?

A)A script
B)A retrieval cue
C)Verbal mediation
D)Construction in retrieval

Question 13

People's interpretations of a new event are most likely to be influenced by their own expectations when the event is:

A)Abstract
B)Concrete
C)Ambiguous
D)Presented in a predominantly visual manner, rather than verbally

Question 14

Maria moved to this country several months ago.She has been studying English as a second language but still has much to learn about the language of her new homeland.One day her teacher tells the class, "Bring an empty coffee can to school tomorrow for a project we're going to do." Maria hears only two familiar words-"coffee" and "school"-and guesses that her teacher is saying that students should not drink coffee at school.Maria's misinterpretation illustrates which of the following?

A)Use of a script
B)Conceptual change
C)Construction in retrieval
D)Construction in storage

Question 15

Which one of the following situations illustrates the phenomenon of overgeneralization in concept learning? In each case, the concept in question is in italics.

A)Alvin calls a tall sunflower a tree.
B)Brady denies that a palm tree is a tree.
C)Calvin thinks that all igloos are made out of Styrofoam.
D)Daniel doesn't understand why he can't build an igloo in the summer.

Question 16

Over the course of history, science has continued to evolve as new data emerge and scientists present new ideas to explain those data.This continuing process of change in scientific thinking over the years best reflects which one of the following concepts?

A)Individual constructivism
B)Social constructivism
C)Reconstruction error
D)A worldview

Question 17

Many cognitive psychologists believe that learning and understanding are often constructive in nature.Three of the following scenarios illustrate such construction.Which scenario does not necessarily involve construction in learning?

A)Although no one has ever told her so, Peggy thinks that the night sky is a big black blanket covering the earth and that the blanket has tiny holes through which the stars shine.
B)Mr.McFarland asks his third graders to practice their multiplication tables every day.After a month of such practice, Misty can retrieve all the basic multiplication facts quickly and easily.
C)When George reads about the Vietnam War in his history book, he comes to the conclusion that the United States should never have gotten involved in Southeast Asia.
D)Because the word photosynthesis begins with photo, Jeremy guesses that it must have something to do with taking photographs.

Question 18

Which one of the following common sayings best reflects the idea of distributed cognition?

A)"A stitch in time saves nine."
B)"Two heads are better than one."
C)"Look before you leap."
D)"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

Question 19

Michael has just written a short research paper that describes the events surrounding the first transatlantic telegraph cable.As he rereads his paper before giving it to his teacher, he doesn't notice that he's misspelled Atlantic as "Altantic" on one occasion, even though he knows perfectly well how the word should be spelled.Michael's proofreading error can best be explained by considering the role of in the construction of meaning.

A)a script
B)ambiguity
C)expectations
D)assessment

Question 20

Which one of the following best describes a concept?

A)A definition that is learned verbatim
B)A concrete example of an abstract idea
C)A category of similar objects or events
D)A vague, intuitive idea about an area of knowledge

Question 21

Which one of the following statements best describes the notion of conceptual understanding?

A)Students learn all the facts that a teacher or textbook presents related to a topic.
B)Students come to the realization that a particular belief they have is incorrect.
C)Students can describe two opposing perspectives about a controversial issue.
D)Students learn ideas related to a topic in a meaningful and integrated fashion.

Question 22

Three of the following teaching strategies are likely to help students acquire a conceptual understanding of classroom subject matter.Which strategy, though possibly beneficial for other reasons, is least likely to promote conceptual understanding?

A)Exploring a topic in depth
B)Developing automaticity of basic skills
C)Asking students to teach a topic to a classmate
D)Relating new ideas to students' personal experiences

Question 23

Three of the following are authentic activities related to using a computer.Which one is, in and of itself, not an authentic activity?

A)Learning how to save files on a hard drive
B)Writing a letter to a friend using a word processing program
C)Sending an e-mail message to a government official
D)Statistically analyzing data collected in a science experiment

Question 24

From the perspective of contemporary cognitive psychology, a schema can best be described as:

A)An organized set of facts about a particular object or phenomenon
B)A plan of action regarding how to learn something
C)A set of reasons why a student would want to learn something
D)A basic piece of information upon which most other knowledge must build

Question 25

Which one of the following best illustrates a worldview at work?

A)When Mick falls down and sprains his ankle, Rachel says, "That must be God punishing you for calling me nasty names yesterday."
B)On his first trip to the ocean, Eli looks toward the horizon and wonders how far the water goes.
C)Daniella thinks that the earth is round only in the way that a pancake is round.
D)Ophelia is convinced that no one at school likes her.

Question 26

Three of the following teachers are following recommended practices for teaching concepts.Which one is not?

A)Mr.Adams teaches the concept fruit by showing examples of many different fruits and many different nonfruits.
B)Mr.Benito teaches the concept reptile by limiting class discussion to dinosaurs- animals that students find especially interesting.
C)Mr.Carlson teaches the concept vertebrate by giving a definition of the concept.
D)After a lesson on the concept carbohydrate, Mr.Danielson asks students to give their own examples of the concept.

Question 27

Ms.Rushing, a middle school science teacher, wants her students to develop a good understanding of principles related to the concepts of force and velocity.Three of the following strategies should help her students construct such an understanding.Which strategy would educational psychologists be least likely to advocate for promoting effective knowledge construction related to force and velocity?

A)Have students experiment with objects to observe the effects that force has on velocity.
B)Perform classroom demonstrations that illustrate the concepts of force and velocity, and have students discuss alternative interpretations of the phenomena they observe.
C)Have students apply principles of force and velocity to a task in which they must move a heavy object across the room.
D)Make sure that students can recite definitions of both force and velocity and can repeat basic principles regarding how the two are interrelated.

Question 28

Four boys read this line from a story: "The two men entered the restaurant and ordered hamburgers." Which one of the boys is clearly using a script while reading the story?

A)Alex assumes that the men probably looked at a menu before ordering.
B)Bob is guessing that the men probably have evil motives.
C)Colin wonders what the men look like.
D)Devon thinks the men should be more careful about their cholesterol intake.

Question 29

The textbook describes a study by Bartlett in which college students in England read a Native American ghost story entitled "The War of the Ghosts." From Bartlett's results, we can conclude that students who read a story written from the perspective of a culture different from their own are likely to:

A)Reject the story as being ridiculous or far-fetched
B)Form unwarranted and prejudicial attitudes about people from that other culture
C)Interpret the story in a way that's more consistent with their own culture
D)Construct a more multicultural perspective of the world

Question 30

Ms.Villanueva has her students engage in a variety of activities in her middle school geography class.Three of the activities described below are authentic activities.Which one is not an authentic activity as educational psychologists define the term?

A)Constructing a map of the local business district
B)Finding the most direct route to Chicago on a road map
C)Using library resources to identify a good place to take a vacation
D)Describing the difference between latitude and longitude clearly and concretely

Question 31

Which one of the following examples best illustrates the use of a personally constructed theory as a child learns the concept spider?

A)Ian learns that spiders have eight legs, whereas insects have only six.
B)Julian assumes that spiders must give birth to baby spiders, just as people give birth to baby people.
C)Rudy learns that spiders, along with scorpions and ticks, are members of the arachnid class.
D)Duc remembers what happened when his cousin was bitten by a black widow spider.

Question 32

Wendy sees a picture of a beach and then later tries to draw the picture from memory.She draws shells on the beach even though the beach in the picture had no shells.Using cognitive psychologists' concept of schema, how could we explain Wendy's error?

A)Wendy's schemas of beaches and shells are interfering with each other.
B)Wendy has a schema for shells but does not have one for beaches.
C)Wendy has a schema for beaches but does not have one for shells.
D)Wendy's schema of how a typical beach looks includes shells.

Question 33

In contemporary cognitive psychology, a script can best be described as:

A)A particular way of talking oneself through a difficult situation
B)Knowledge about the typical sequence of events in an activity
C)The strategy that a teacher tells students to use in order to remember classroom material
D)The things that someone typically says when initiating a conversation with someone else
E)g., "small talk")

Question 34

Which one of the following statements best reflects how a contemporary concept- learning theorist might explain the acquisition of class inclusion as Piaget used this term?

A)Children develop increasingly elaborate scripts to explain everyday events.
B)Children develop increasing knowledge about how particular concepts are interrelated.
C)Children's knowledge becomes less dependent on constructive processes over time.
D)Children's schemas gradually evolve into scripts.

Question 35

Which one of the following is the best example of problem-based learning?

A)Learning the logic behind certain problem-solving procedures in math
B)Learning history by reading detective novels set in certain historical eras
C)Devising a way to move a large, heavy object using principles of physics
D)Solving a series of mathematical word problems that gradually progress in difficulty

Question 36

The textbook advocates the use of classroom dialogues for promoting knowledge construction.Which one of the following student interactions is most likely to be effective in this respect?

A)Two students work together on a crossword puzzle that includes the week's new spelling words.
B)Two students help each other prepare for a quiz by giving each other practice test questions.
C)Three students in a cooperative learning group discuss different ways of solving a certain math problem.
D)When a French teacher begins class by saying, "Comment allez vous?" the students reply in unison, "Trés bien."

Question 37

Which one of the following statements best describes psychologists' belief that children's knowledge sometimes takes the form of theories?

A)The ways in which children categorize their experiences usually have little relevance to physical reality.
B)Children form hypotheses about the characteristics of members of a particular concept category and then test those hypotheses against specific examples of the concept they encounter.
C)In the early years, children develop concrete understandings of events; these understandings become increasingly more abstract as they reach adolescence.
D)Children develop general belief systems about how certain aspects of the world operate.

Question 38

Three of the following are examples of authentic activities.Which one is least authentic?

A)Collecting samples of local vegetation in a botany class
B)Writing an editorial for the local newspaper
C)Playing shortstop in a baseball game
D)Taking an essay test in a history class

Question 39

Which one of the following statements best describes theorists' rationale for advocating the use of authentic activities?

A)Authentic activities are the most efficient way of teaching basic skills.
B)Authentic activities have built-in scaffolding that assures students' success.
C)Authentic activities help students relate classroom subjects to real-world contexts.
D)Students' performance in authentic activities is easier to evaluate objectively.

Question 40

Which one of the following teaching strategies best illustrates many educational psychologists' belief that, in some situations, less is more?

A)Teach fewer topics, but teach each one more thoroughly.
B)Provide a general overview of a topic before discussing it in depth.
C)Present general ideas about a topic but minimize the use of supporting details.
D)Teach classroom material in short intervals of time, with lessons typically lasting 20 minutes at the most.

Question 41

Which one of the following best describes the process of conceptual change as cognitive psychologists use the term?

A)Developing new categories to classify objects and events
B)Revising one's beliefs after receiving information that contradicts those beliefs
C)Achieving the instructional objectives that a teacher has established for a lesson or unit
D)Acquiring more sophisticated vocabulary with which to describe the events in one's life

Question 42

Students' misconceptions about the world may come from a variety of sources.Which one of the following is not a likely source that theorists have identified?

A)Students form general theories based on how the world appears to be.
B)Teachers and textbooks sometimes provide misinformation.
C)Students usually believe explanations that younger children give them.
D)Common expressions in language
E)g., the sun "sets" in the west)misrepresent reality.

Question 43

Which one of the following examples illustrates conceptual change?

A)As a Boy Scout, Andy has learned how to cook a wide variety of foods over an open fire.
B)Brad misinterprets the scientific explanation of fire to fit what he believes: that fire is an object with substance and weight.
C)Charlotte used to think that fire was an actual substance, but now she knows it's a chemical change.
D)Danielle wasn't aware of how much damage fire could really do until the house next door burned down.

Question 44

Three of the following strategies should promote the acquisition of useful theories about certain aspects of the world.Which one is least likely to do so?

A)Encourage students to form a strong emotional attachment to their beliefs.
B)Show three-dimensional models that illustrate the solar system, the structure of DNA, and so on.
C)Before conducting a demonstration of how heat affects a gas, ask students to make predictions about what they think will happen.
D)Encourage and answer students' why and how questions about the things they see in their personal lives.

Question 45

Three of the following strategies should help promote conceptual change.Which one probably will not?

A)Pique students' interest in classroom subject matter.
B)Have students learn definitions of important concepts to automaticity.
C)Identify and build on the parts of students' understandings that are accurate.
D)Identify students' misconceptions about a topic and address them during instruction.

Question 46

Which one of the following illustrates confirmation bias?

A)Barak feels much better when his teacher gives him a high rather than low grade on a writing assignment.He gets depressed when he thinks that his work is anything less than perfect.
B)When Lavina reads about the migratory behavior of Canada geese, she is very curious about why the geese travel along certain routes flyways).She spends an entire evening searching the Internet for a scientific explanation of their behavior.
C)In his geography class, Carlos likes the unit on South America more than the unit on Africa because his grandfather was born and raised in Colombia.
D)Jayne thinks that metal objects always sink.When she places an aluminum pie plate in a tub of water and sees that it floats, she says, "It only looks like aluminum; it must be plastic with silver paint on it."

Question 47

If you wanted to give your students a sense of how adult researchers often interact with one another in order to gain new understandings of a topic, you would be most likely to:

A)Create a community of learners
B)Teach students how to read textbooks effectively
C)Have students create a class home page on the Internet
D)Teach students how to give an organized lecture

Question 48

Students often hold on stubbornly to their misconceptions about the world.Three of the following are possible explanations as to why this might be so.Which statement is not a likely explanation for the resilience of misconceptions?

A)Synapses in the brain become less effective over time.
B)Some misconceptions are central elements of students' personally constructed theories about the world.
C)Students learn school material without relating it to the things they know and believe.
D)Students elaborate on new information in ways that are consistent with their current misconceptions.

Question 49

Three of the following are common misconceptions that elementary or secondary students are likely to have.Which one is not necessarily a common misconception?

A)The earth is shaped like a disk.
B)Any moving object has a force acting on it.
C)Most animals can survive for months without food.
D)People will no longer be poor if someone gives them a little money.

Question 50

Imagine you are a biology teacher who is teaching students about the nature of evolution.You discover that some of your students refuse to believe that modern human beings evolved from more primitive life-forms, explaining that their religious beliefs tell them that God created people.If you follow the textbook's suggestion regarding such a situation, you would be most likely to:

A)Help students understand evolution theory, even though they may not agree with this theory
B)Omit the topic of evolution from the class curriculum, replacing it with a more in- depth look at the nature of DNA
C)Ask students to write an essay in which they give their reasons for not believing that evolution occurred
D)Present more compelling evidence for evolution than you would otherwise

Question 51

A community of learners can best be described as:

A)A small group of students that chooses a special topic it wants to pursue independently
B)A classroom that has an elected "government council" that directs learning activities
C)A classroom in which a cooperative spirit of helping one another learn prevails
D)A classroom in which students learn almost exclusively through individual and small-group experimentation

Question 52

Generally speaking, elaboration helps students learn new information.An exception to this rule is when students elaborate on the information:

A)Using misconceptions they have previously acquired
B)After having previously organized it as a hierarchy
C)Using information they stored many years before
D)Very quickly

Question 53

Three of the following teaching strategies should help students acquire useful theories about phenomena in the natural world.Which strategy is least likely to be effective in fostering students' theory development?

A)Explain that the formation and spread of a glacier is similar to how a pancake increases as more and more batter is poured into the pan.
B)Describe heat as something that "flows" from one object to another.
C)Ask students to memorize a one-paragraph summary of how mitosis occurs.
D)Show a diagram of the human digestive system.

Question 54

Each of the teachers below has students with misconceptions about the material they are studying.Three of the teachers are using strategies that should help their students correct these misconceptions.Which teacher is not using an effective strategy for changing misconceptions?

A)Ms.Andersen gives corrective feedback when students make statements that reflect misconceptions.
B)Mr.Bissette presents a situation that students cannot adequately explain using their current beliefs about the topic.
C)Ms.Caro reminds her students that she will be testing them on the material they are studying.
D)Mr.Darren shows students how the true explanation of something is different from, and more plausible than, their existing beliefs.

Question 55

Which one of the following examples best illustrates the idea of promoting multiple constructions of the same situation?

A)A science teacher makes it clear to students that the terms velocity and
B)A mathematics teacher encourages students to do their calculations first by hand and then, as a double-check, by calculator.
C)A foreign language teacher teaches students how to say, "Where is the train station?" in German.
D)A history teacher describes the Mexican-American War from the perspectives of both the United States and Mexico.

Question 56

Three of the following statements are true with regard to students with special needs.Which statement is false?

A)Students with social or behavioral problems often misinterpret social situations and therefore respond inappropriately to them.
B)Students with advanced cognitive development typically have the same amount of knowledge that their classmates have but are able to retrieve it more quickly.
C)Students with general delays in cognitive and social functioning have a difficult time making sense of a message when the message is ambiguous or incomplete.
D)Students with general delays in cognitive development tend to have a more limited knowledge base than their classmates.