Samuel and Bryant Flashcards
What are piagets 4 stages of development?
1) sensory motor: 0-18 months understanding environment by senses
2) pre-operational 18-7 years able to represent objects or events and language to express ideas
3) concrete operational 7-12 years more sophisticated operations but can’t see full logic of things
4) formal operational 12 years governed by formal logic, begins to understand world as adults do
What was the aim of this study?
To challenge piagets findings by altering his methods. Testing hypotheses that asking only 1 question in conservation task would lead to more correct answers.
What method was this study?
Lab experiment
IV: age, type of question asked, type of task
DV:performance on conservation task
What was the sample of this study and how were they split up?
Opportunity sample
252 boys and girls (5-8 years) form Devon
Divided into 4 ages groups of 63
5yrs 3m
6yrs 3m
7yrs 3m
8yrs 3 m
These were then divided into sub groups of 3 for the different condition (so 21 for either standard , 1 judgement, or fixed array)
What were the 3 conditions?
1) standard, piagets 2 question conservation, asked about size before and after shape was changed.
2) 1 judgment, only 1 question asked after transformation
3) fixed array, don’t see transformation only display then asked
What were the 3 tasks each child had to complete in their assigned condition?
1) mass: 2 play dough, 1 squashed and then compared and asked are they the same?
2) number: 2 counters qual lengths, 1 spread out or bunched up, asked if same
3) volume: identical glasses, 1 liquid poured into narrower glass, asked if same
Each child given 4 trials with each material
What were the results of this study?
1 judge,eat tasks made less errors than standard conservation and fixed
There is a significant difference between ages group, older perform better (piagets phases of development)
Children made fewer errors on the number tasks
Fixed array had highest errors
What are the conclusions?
Asking same question twice causes some children to fail to conserve this may be due to children being used to being asked same question twice when it’s wrong the first time, but as age increased children made fewer errors showing development stages
What is the background to this Samuel and Bryant?
Challenges Paige’s theory of cognitive development though criticising his methods.
His beliefs in systematic structured processes, it’s not just the amount of knowledge that distinguishes a child’s age but qualitative differences in thoughts known as the 4 stages of development.
Piagets theory showed errors children make with problems, showing the different stages, however in one of his conservation tests he demonstrates that the beaker water test a pre operational will say tall one as not developed ability to conserve volume, same as with clay and buttons.
