Concrete and Abstract Thinkers at Three Grade Levels and Their Performance with Complex Concepts

Seventy-two students, identified as either concrete or abstract thinkers through the use of the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children Similarities Subtest, were randomly selected from Grades 4, 6, and 8 and used as subjects in a complex concept identification task developed by the authors. The task consisted of categorizing a set of 40 slides depicting concepts of freedom, nonfreedom, justice, and non-justice. The results of the 2 × 3 × 2 analysis of variance indicated that abstract thinkers performed significantly better than did concrete thinkers, p