Nancy Brownell

Formal Reasoning Ability in Preservice Elementary Education Students: Matched to the Technology Education Task at Hand?.

AbstractApplications of computers and associated technologies in education often call for students to use and develop formal reasoning skills. Preservice teachers are often expected to possess the formal reasoning skills needed to use technology in this manner and later, as teachers, to instruct their students in such applications of technology. This study examines the formal reasoning abilities of 147 preservice elementary education students enrolled in a computer education course at a large mid-western university via the Arlin Test of Formal Reasoning (ATFR). A descriptive picture of students’ abilities for the categories of concrete, high concrete, transitional, low formal, and formal reasoning is presented. Possible correlations between subjects’ ages and self-reported grade point averages and their scores on the ATFR are investigated. Implications for the schools and for computer and technology courses for preservice teachers are discussed.