modification of Piagets conservation tasks
Lori is four year old, and she is at Piaget's preoperational stage. According to Piaget's description of the preoperational stage children, they cannot understand his conservation tasks. This preoperational stage, "children can use representations (mental images, drawings, words, gestures) rather than just motor actions to think about objects and events. Thinking now is faster, more flexible and efficient, and more socially shared. Thinking is limited by egocentrism, a focus on perceptual states, reliance on appearances rather than underlying realities, and rigidity (lack of reversibility)" (Flavell, miller, 1993). The young children do not have abilities to have "operations mental actions that obey logical rules. Instead, their thinking is rigid, limited to one aspect of a situation at a time, and strongly influenced by the way things appear at the moment" (Berk, 1999). According to Piagetian conservation tasks, preoperational stage: 2-7 years old children lacked the knowledge to conserve. Conservation means, " the understanding that certain physical characteristics of objects remain the same, even when their outward appearance changes" (Berk, 1999). Piaget's test for conservation of number is described as two
In conservation of liquid, I also started with Piaget's experience, Lori first agreed that two identical glasses contain the same amounts of water, and I pour water from one glass into the taller and thinner glass, with Lori watching, and then ask Lori whether the two amounts of water are still the same, or whether one glass now contains more water than the other. In this experiment, Lori would say the taller and thinner glass contains more water than the other one. Because to Piaget, children at this preoperational stage could not understand conservation of liquid, they only see the taller and thinner glass "looks like it has more, and accept things as they seem to be" (Flavell, miller, 1993). To modify this conservation of liquid, I had Lori help me mix the colored fruit juice and pour into the two exactly alike glasses. Lori was so happy that she learned to make juice, and she was very interest in the changed color of the water. Again I tried to have Lori's interest, so she could focus on this task. I used the measure cup to have Lori identifies the numbers two on the cup so the two glasses had the same amount of juice and pour into them. I ask her are these two glasses had same amount of color fruit juice and her answer was "yes, there are the same." Then I ask her to help me pouring the juice from one glass to the taller and thinner glass before that I have her to measure the juice and it showed on number two. I ask her the question again, and she knew immediately the taller and thinner glass has the same amount of juice as the one that look smaller. In conclusion, Piaget would still consider Lori is too young to successfully accomplish his conservation tasks. But in my modification, I had show the significantly improve on Lori's ability to do the task correctly. Lori's attention, understanding the concept of numbers and the hands on experiences on the tasks made her realize that the outside appearances changed did not mean the change of the tasks. Based on the experiments, young children like Lori (preoperational stage) do conserve the number and do conserve the liquid very early in life contrary to the Piaget's theory of stages and his tasks.
Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 1787
Approximate Pages = 7 (250 words per page double spaced)
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