ABSTRACT
Within the past few years, there has been increased emphasis on instruction designed to foster problem solving and other higher-order cognitive skills. There has been much disagreement whether such skills are general in nature or whether they are specific to content areas. Many current thinking skills programs are not designed to be taught in the context of traditional curricular areas; inherent in such programs is the assumption that students gradually will acquire the ability to use such skills across a broad range of contexts. Glaser (1984) and others have challenged this assumption, arguing that skill use is heavily dependent upon one's store of knowledge in the specific domain. Sternberg (1987) has identified this issue of skill transfer as the most important one faced by thinking skills programs.
