| Cognitive skills are defined as the ability to solve problems in the cognitive domain. Compared with the general ability to solve problems, this ability is only confined in the cognitive domain where a solver, through his cognition of the problems situation, uses related concepts and rules to solve problems. Cognitive skills thus include not only those abilities which help a solver solve problems by using learned concepts and rules, but also those that help him monitor his cognition of the situation applicability.Acquisition of Cognitive Skills (ACS) refers to a whole process from learning the declarative rules, then to the proceduralization of declarative rules and last to the conditionalization of procedural rales.ACS pays its attention to the learning process of cognitive skills from a dynamic longitudinal level. The study of the whole process of ACS will help us deeply understand the nature of cognitive skills and thus be beneficial to the instructional design of ACS.Teaching strategies are the core of a teacher' knowledge structure , his teaching manner directing to the instructional objectives and his adaptation to meet students' learning needs. Teaching strategies serve as a bridge of transforming teaching theories into teaching practices.Based on studies of cognitive skills at home and abroad, the paper proposes a teaching model of ACS in which the leaning process, the teaching process and stages of ACS are integrated. The model also gives an expression to ecologic and systematic teaching views. This study synthesizes the theory of cognitive load, the theory of constructionist learning, the theory of situational cognition and the theory of the transfer of ACT-R and probes into the effectiveness of the representation strategies of teaching materials, such as numerical-graphical(N-G) split, N-G integration and goal-free; the effectiveness of the strategies of practice, such as the structural variance of practice materials and question-generating representation strategy; the effectiveness of the strategies of conditional cognition and of the teaching feedback, respectively, upon the three learning stages of declaration, procedure and conditionalization. Therefore, the study is composed of the following three sections : In Section One, through a comparative study between the traditional teaching style - "lectures plus practice" and teaching materials represented by the spatial and graphical worked examples , a comparative study between N-G split teaching materials and N-G integrated teaching materials and a comparative study between the goal-definite and goal-free strategies of teaching representation, we explore how new strategies—the spatial and graphical worked examples, N-G integration and the goal-free of strategies of teaching representation—produce an effect on the process (by a qualitative analysis)and the outcome (by a quantitative analysis)of acquisition of declarative rules.In Section Two, we inquire into the effect produced by the structural variance of practice materials and the question-generating representation strategy on the proceduralization of skills respectively. Here in this section we analyze the effect of teaching strategies on the mastery of cognitive skills both quantitatively and qualitatively.In Section Three, from the transferring perspective, the study discusses the effect produced by strategies of the conditional cognition and the teaching feedback on the conditionalization of cognitive skills. At this stage, learners apply their learned concepts and rules to solveing problems similar to or different from those in the classroom teaching.From the above-mentioned three sections of the thesis, inclusive of seven teaching experiments, we draw the following conclusions:1. Compared with the traditional teaching style - "lectures plus practice", the teaching materials represented by spatial and graphical worked examples can better promote students to learn the related concepts and rules .2. In comparison with N-G split teaching materials, N-G integrated teaching materials can spare the time in learning the same amount of materials. Furthermore, N-G integrated teaching materials promote students' learning concepts and rules more than N-G split teaching materials.3. In solving spatial and graphical problems, compared with the strategy of goal-definite teaching representation, the strategy of goal-free teaching representation is more effective for students to learn concepts and rules and cultivate the flexibility of thinking.4.In comparison with low-variance representation materials, teaching materials with high-variance representation promote cognitive skills transforming more effectively from the declarative state to the procedural state in the procedural stage of ACS. Furthermore, such promoting effects of classroom teaching on students with a high-score are more effective than the effects on students with a low-score.5. In comparison with the teaching strategy of additional-question, the teaching strategy of generating-question enables students to solve problems successfully. Thus trainings in generating questions improve students' ability in solving problems more effectively, especially for students with a high score. Besides, the training of how to generate questions (between§1 and§2 in Experiment 5) improves significantly the way of expression of how students with a low score generate questions.6. Compared with the strategy of low-distinct teaching representation, the strategy of high-distinct represented by 'If/Then' rules produces a positive transferring effect in near and far transfer. The effect is more obvious in far transfer directed to calculate the area of a quadrilateral.7. Compared with micro-feedback, error-pointed feedback and excessive feedback, error-correcting feedback is a more simple, convenient and easily accomplished teaching strategy, which can promote steadily students' scores in the close and far transfer. Among these four feedback strategies, micro-feedback and error-pointed feedback are the least accomplished.8. The teaching model of ACS brought up in this study, which integrates leaning process, stages of ACS and teaching strategies of how to improve ACS into a unity, is feasible and reasonable.ACS is the main task of students' classroom learning. Studies on the teaching strategies of ACS have long been and will still be the focus of researches in the field of instructional psychology and effective teaching. Exploration of the process and teaching strategies of ACS, as we stress in this study, will help us understand better the essence of the process of knowledge acquisition and the nature of knowledge classification. This exploration may also provide theoretical and methodological support to educators as they create and optimize the internal and external conditions of teaching situation for the instructional design of ACS.Compared with previous studies, this study goes further in these aspects:First, it brings up a teaching model of ACS which integrates leaning process, stages of ACS and teaching strategies of how to improve ACS into a unity. Second, it stresses the importance of improving teaching strategies of ACS by regarding the process of ACS as an entirety but not a combination of fragments. Third, it also addresses the stage-related characteristics of teaching strategies, meaning although it is impossible to treat teaching strategies used at different stages as distinctly separated from one another, each of them does play a different and special role in promoting ACS especially at its specific stage. Fourth, it discusses conditional cognitive teaching strategy which improves the transfer of cognitive skills not only by emphasizing the cognition of problem-solving conditions, but also by connecting problem-solving conditions to individuals' storage of production representation. Fifth, it systematically probes into the promoting effect on teaching strategies of junior school students' ACS in spatial and graphical field and thus possesses characteristics of pioneering and inquiring the same kind research at home.
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