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| My name is Jean Piaget and i see children as active little scientists as they learn by exploring their own thinking . |
Jean Piaget is a famous psychologist being one of the first psychologist studying cognitive development in children. Piaget wasn't only interested in what children could do or couldn't but why they made the mistakes they did. Through the aid of imaginative tasks Piaget was able to establish an insight into children's thought processes. His conclusion was children's thinking was not the same as adults and that cognition (thinking) was a development that is learned and not what is biological.
For your Exam you will need to know the different stages that Piaget established and the ages at which the stages occur apart from the pre-operational stage as this is the main focus of P and S&B studies. :
Sensorimotor - this happened between 0-18 months ( senses)
Pre-Operational- this stage happens between 18 months-7 years and this is when symbols (I.E words) and general rules become important .
Concrete Operational- this happens between 7-12 years
Formal Operational - 12+ years
Piaget focused his study on the pre-operational stage as he said that children at that age can not CONSERVE- the ability of understanding that if shape if something is physically changed it has the same mass, volume or number. Or REVERSE MENTAL OPERATION- the acceptance only of what is observed in present so wouldn't believe that water in liquid form came from an ice cube.
His founding had a tremendous impact on teaching in the 1960-70's with his founding provided evidence that children are motivated to learn better when they when they explore thinking with to the extent of what stage they're in.
Piaget experimented on children aged between 5-8 years of age where he showed children two rows of counters containing the same amount of counters in each row and asked children if both rows had the same number of coins in the rows.This was known as the pre-transformational question. Then Piaget spaced out the coins on one row transforming the appearance of the rows. Then he asked whether the rows had the same number of coins in the rows. Children according to Piagets stages cant conserve or reverse mental operation so they would say that the number of coins on both rows are the same in the post-transformational question however they don't understand that when you physically transform one row the number of coins stayed the same so would say that the numbers in the post transformational questions would be different. Which proves Piagets theory.
However critics of Piagets Experiment Rose and Blank(1974) would suggest that asking two questions could be proven confusing to children so therefore even if the children thought that the number of coins was the same post transformation asking the question twice would make the child think that the first answer they given was wrong which given the basis for Samuels and Bryant's study.
Asking Only One Question In The Conservation Experiment(1983)
Aim
♥ To test the hypothesis that asking only one question in the conservation task would lead to more correct answers.
Participants
Samuel and Bryant picked 252 boys and girls from a variety of schools and preschools in Devon. They were placed into four age controlled groups (A(5.3),B(6.3),C(7.3) and D(8.3))- 21 children in each of the groups) with 63 children in each group. these four groups were then divided into three experimental conditions which were
Standard Piaget
- pre and post transformation were asked
One Judgement
- Shown transformation but only asked one question
Fixed Array
- Only shown post transformation and asked one question
84 children was subjected to each of the conditions above.
Each trial was repeated 4 times making a total of 12 trials per child so that researchers could make sure that the results were not due to chance factors, children also experienced only one of the conditions making it an independent measures design. Tasks were also shown at random to reduce the possibility of order effects.
Independent Variables
- age of the participants (5.3,6.3,7.3,8.3)
- experimental condition the children were in (fixed array, one judgement, standard Piaget)
- material used in the conservation task(number-coins, mass-plasticine, volume- liquid in a glass)
Findings
The way the researchers recorded the findings was due to the number of errors the child made. an error was an incorrect statement about the changes in volume, mass or number.
At age 5.3 in the Standard Piaget children scored 8.5, in One-Judgement children scored,7.3 and in the Fixed Array children scored 8.6.
At age 6.3 in the Standard Piaget children scored 5.7, in One-Judgement children scored 4.3 and in Fixed Array children scored 6.4.
At age 7.3 in the Standard Piaget children scored 3.2, in One-Judgement children scored 2.3 and in Fixed Array children scored 4.9.
At age 8.3 in the Standard Piaget children scored 1.7, in One-Judgement children scored 1.3 and in
Fixed Array children scored 3.3.
Findings against the IVs
- Age: number of errors decreases with the age going up which shows that the ability to conserve gets significantly better with age.- Experimental Condition: The mean number of errors is lower for the One Judgement condition (where only pre-transformational question had been asked.)
- Material tested in the conservation tasks: Overall the data shown below presents findings for third variable; it can be seen that children are more successful and so make fewer errors when conserving number compared with volume or mass.
In the conservation tasks data recorded was recorded on the same principle as the finding were recorded.
In conservation of Mass children in the Standard Piaget scored 1.5, children in One Judgement scored 1.2 and children in Fixed Array scored 1.7.
In the conservation of Number children in the Standard Piaget scored 1.5, children in One Judgement scored 1.0 and in Fixed Array 1.5.
In the conservation of Volume children in the Standard Piaget scored 1.8, children in One Judgement scored 1.6 and in Fixed Array 2.5.
Conclusions:
- Children can conserve better than Piaget initialised in the first place , this could be due to the presentation of questions ( Asking 1 or 2 questions) , asking 2 questions clearly confused the child and created demand characteristics in that if the question is asked twice even if the child thought that their answer was correct both times they are going to assume that the answer they gave the first time must be wrong so say a different answer because they think that's what the researcher is wanting to know.- The results from Fixed Array condition clearly shows that the transformation needs to be shown in order to understand conservation fully. This is evidenced by the highest number of errors in the fixed array conditions, however did best in one judgement because of the transformation shown which provides child with sufficient knowledge to prove that the material didn't change.
Evaluation
The researchers were using 3 iv's which is a strength as it allows a cause and effect relationship to be established and the researcher is therefore able to pin point the factors affecting results e.g. as you get older you can conserve better. Also by using an experimental design researchers were able to achieve high levels of control. However because the experiment was a laboratory experiment it happened in a non-naturalistic environment so the results that were obtained could be due to demand characteristics and as in a non naturalistic environment are not true to life this means that this study has low ecological validity.Overall the study is highly ethical although it was an unusual procedure the possibility of the distress of children was faint.
The sample obtained by Samuel and Bryant was large and could be considered as representative, ages covered the time period in which Piaget said that children cant conserve so it allowed researchers to investigate where conservation begins if an age range wasn't used than the effect of age could not be tested. Although all the children studied were from one area in England which could be criticised for being un representative due to its ethnocentric nature as results could have been different in different parts of England or more so different countries over the whole world .
The type of data collected was Quantitative which allowed the creation of statistics which could indicate the probability that results were due to the different change factors.
The research was useful in a few ways,but most importantly it showed us that children's development is affected by the environmental influences, in this case the way the questions were asked affected the response.
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