Piaget (key study) (development)

Question 1

What was the background?

Answer 1

Piaget wanted to prove that conservation is one of the skills that children acquire as part of their cognitive development. (concrete operational stage)

Question 2

What was the aim?

Answer 2

To demonstrate that children in the concrete operational stage are more likely to be able to conserve than children in the pre-operational stage.

Question 3

What was the hypothesis?

Answer 3

Children in the concrete operational stage will be able to conserve, whereas children in the pre-operational stage will not.

Question 4

What was the design?

Answer 4

It was a natural experiment as the children’s age cannot be controlled

Question 5

What was the independent variable?

Answer 5

Age of the children

Question 6

What was the dependent variable?

Answer 6

The ability to conserve

Question 7

Was the study cross sectional or longitudinal?

Answer 7

Cross sectional because he tested the children of different ages at a single point in time

Question 8

What measure was used?

Answer 8

Independent measures as each child was a different age

Question 9

What was the sample?

Answer 9

• Unknown number of children
• Swiss school children from Geneva
• 3 of Piaget’s own children

Question 10

What were the materials?

Answer 10

Counters

Question 11

What was the procedure?

Answer 11

• Each child was shown 2 rows of 5 counters that were lined up side by side. (each counter was directly opposite the one on the other side so the rows were equal lengths)
• The child was asked: ‘is there the same number of counters in each row?’
• The experimenter then spread out one of the rows (so that there were still the same number of counters in each row but one row was longer than the other)
• The child was asked: ‘is there the same number of counters in each row?’

Question 12

What were the results?

Answer 12

• 3-4 yr olds, who were in the pre-operational stage, typically stated that there were more counters in the longer row.
• A few children, who were near the end of the pre-operational stage (about 5-6yrs) were able to state that the number of counters didn’t change, however, they couldn’t justify their answer.
• Many of the children in the concrete operational stage were able to recognise that both rows still contained the same number of counters. They were also able to correctly explain their judgement.

Question 13

What were the conclusions?

Answer 13

Piaget supported his hypothesis as he found that children in the concrete operational stage were able to conserve and justify their answer.

Question 14

What were the criticisms?

Answer 14

• They might have been showing demand characteristics as they thought they were expected to give a different answer as they were asked the same question twice (confusing for younger children). This was proven as other psychologists only asked children one question and were more likely to be able to conserve.
• The children only thought that something changed because the researcher moved the counters. This was proven as many more pre-operational children conserved when a ‘naughty teddy’ moved the counters instead of the researcher.
• The study was culturally biased as it only was conducted on Swiss school children.