The intervention program CASE by Adey and Shayer in the light of previous evaluations

CASE is a 2-year intervention program which aims to promote the cognitive d evelopment of secondary school students, especially the transition from con crete operational to formal operational thinking. The students are taught 3 0 "Thinking Science lessons" by their science teachers. The key principles are based on theories and empirical studies by Piaget, Vygotsky and Feuerst ein. Results have shown that CASE students make significant gains, in compa rison to matched non-CASE students, on Piagetian measures of cognitive deve lopment immediately after the intervention programme, and subsequently on t heir academic results on the General Certificate of Secondary Education (GC SE examinations taken 2 or 3 years after the intervention period) in Scienc e, Mathematics, and English. Present studies investigate possible side-effe cts of CASE.