ABSTRACT
Numerous writers have claimed that a distressingly large percentage of students entering college—and especially those entering community colleges—are ill equipped to meet the kinds of intellectual challenges that their college experience will, or should, present to them. More particularly, it is claimed that many students who have completed secondary school are unable to engage in abstract or, in Piagetian terms, formal operational thinking (Carpenter, 1980; Chiapetta, 1976; Karplus, 1974; Kolodiy, 1975; Lawson & Renner, 1974; McKinnon, 1971; McKinnon & Renner, 1971; Renner & Lawson, 1983; Tomlinson-Keasey, 1972; Towler & Wheatley, 1971). These students appear to be stuck at the concrete-operations stage of cognitive development.
