Functional Area Problems. Opportunities, and Constraints 79 



may be able to help in adapting the technologies to the 

 classroom and in curriculum development. Other forms of 

 industry support might include equipment, financial aid. 

 and participation in teacher training activities. There are 

 obvious benefits to industry, including the purchase of 

 equipment and services by State and local governments 

 and school systems. Industry involvement might also 

 increase public support for its own research and develop- 

 ment efforts. An equally important benefit is the oppor- 

 tunity to expose students to careers in science and technol- 

 ogy, especially in those fields with shortages of trained 

 personnel, as discussed further on in this section. There- 

 fore, increasing indusry involvement is a potential mecha- 

 nism for facilitating the technology transfer process in the 

 coming years, and it would benefit both the educational 

 system and the industries involved. 



OPPORTUNITIES PROVIDED BY THE COGNITIVE SCIENCES 



A central question concerning the use of new technologies 

 in education is how students (particularly young children) 

 respond to electronic teaching and learning tools. Cogni- 

 tive science, a multidisciplinary approach to the study of 

 human mental processes, may be able to shed some light 

 on that and related questions. The relatively new field 

 encompasses contributions from a number of disciplines, 

 including psychology, computer science, anthropology, 

 linguistics, and education. Current research addresses 

 information processing, the storage and retrieval of 

 knowledge, and the acquisition of cognitive skills. Nota- 

 ble recent advances in theory development include the use 

 of mathematical models of decision processes, which 

 allows scientists to distinguish the impact of human biases 

 and discriminative capacity on task performance; the 

 analysis of speech perception and the cognitive processes 

 involved in reading; and the analysis of semantic memory 

 and the correlates of recall of related words and concepts. 

 Of particular importance for education is the aspect of 

 cognitive psychology that focuses on the diagnosis of 

 disabilities. That improved diagnosis would aid the edu- 

 cation of the many handicapped school-aged children in 

 the country who are mentally retarded, have speech de- 

 fects, or exhibit learning or reading problems (NRC-4). 



Other research findings in cognitive science also are 

 directly applicable to education. For example, research in 

 the problem solving process can offer more effective 

 methods for teaching. The subdiscipline of psychology 

 called metacognition is studying self-monitoring and self- 

 control skills used in comprehension and complex knowl- 

 edge acquisition. Teaching children to monitor their own 

 comprehension, a characteristic of skilled readers, can be 

 a powerful mstructional technique (NRC^; EDUC). 



Effective human interaction, including that occurring 

 in an educational setting, is partially dependent on one's 

 ability to understand the feelings and intentions of others. 

 Therefore, research on social and cognitive development 



of children can offer additional insights into the learning 

 process, which could aid teachers in the presentation of 

 material. Studies have explored the development of ethi- 

 cal sensitivity, the influence of peers, the process by 

 which social and cognitive skills are learned, and the 

 influence of television on behavior In addition, some 

 researchers are analyzing social and cognitive develop- 

 ment in emotionally disturbed and delinquent children 

 (SSRC-6). 



The findings from these kinds of studies may be ap- 

 plicable in educational settings, although the exact way 

 they might be applied has not yet been clearly articulated. 

 One possibility noted above is that the studies could 

 provide guidelines for the utilization of the new informa- 

 tion technologies through the assessment of factors influ- 

 encing modes of interaction. Future research could study 

 the response of children to machine technology as a learn- 

 ing tool supplementing or replacing, in some instances, 

 direct teacher-student interaction. A related investigation 

 would be the effect of machine technology on social and 

 cognitive development (SSRC-6). 



PROVIDING ADEQUATE EDUCATION IN 

 SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY' 



A central concern with science and technology education 

 is the ability of the United States to produce and maintain 

 a pool of highly qualified scientists and engineers. There 

 are now and may continue to be personnel shortages in 

 several engineering specialties and the computer sciences, 

 as well as spot shortages in important subdisciplines of the 

 physical and biological sciences {ASTR-HI). Since the 

 impacts of those shortages are discussed in detail in Sec- 

 tion B of the first chapter of this report, they will not be 

 repeated here. 



However, providing adequate education for future sci- 

 entists and engineers is only one concern. The educational 

 needs of two other larger groups will also continue to 

 demand attention and action in the next 5 years. The 

 groups are: (1) those who directly support the activities of 

 scientists and engineers and/or whose jobs demand day- 

 to-day familiarity with modem technology; and (2) the 

 general public, many of whose occupations and profes- 

 sions increasingly involve science and technology consid- 

 erations or dealing with technical people, and all of whom 

 need some understanding of science and technology to 

 function as citizens in a democratic society. 



ENSURING AN ADEQUATE SUPPLY OF TECHNICALLY 

 QUALIFIED PERSONNEL 



Many people, including both administrators and technical 

 staff, augment and support the work of science and engi- 

 neering professionals. A moderate level of competence 

 and understanding of science, mathematics, and technol- 



