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Strategies of Knowledge Acquisition

1995, Monographs of The Society for Research in Child Development

Abstract

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. research is that cognitive development can be adequately accounted for in terms of developing knowledge within content domains. As a consequence, findings are largely specific to the domain studied. The major insight that extends across domains is the theory-like organization of knowledge. Even the properties that define simple concepts cluster and mutually support one another. Conceptions of such homeostatic causal clusters, and the mechanisms underlying them, are the "glue" that makes features cohere (Keil, 1991). At a less elementary level, evidence exists suggesting that young children's theories have properties such as consistency, coherence, comprehensiveness, and explanatory power .