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Angela Ouellette EDSE 5002 July 2012

Piagets Experiments
Introduction
Piaget is best known for his theories of intellectual development. Through his research, he theorized that people have two basic predispositions, one being the way we process and combine and information (organization), and the other how we adjust to the environment surrounding us (adaption). Piaget believed that meaningful learning occurred when we as people used existing information to produce new ideas and knowledge. He also believed that social interaction with peers on the same level of development was more beneficial to a childs cognitive development than social interaction with other children and adults. Through his research, Piaget was able to divide childrens levels of development into different stages. Piaget divided the stages of development into four groups: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. In this research, we examine subjects from the preoperational stage and the formal operational stage.

Subject Information
For the research in the preoperational stage, we will have Ethan, a three year old from Alvord complete two experiments: Experiment 1: In this experiment, we will research the subjects perceptual centration by asking him to identify which has more by examining different bowls

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with equal amounts of water; he will also compare pennies that have been divided differently. Experiment 2: Ethan will be given nine objects; the objects will be put into a brown paper bag. After all items are in the bag, Ethan will be asked to recall all the objects. The objects that he can recall will be taken back out of the bag. Ethan should be able to use past experiences with the items to create symbol oriented schemes to recall the objects.

Stage Description
Piaget classified children between the ages of two to seven in the preoperational stage. At this stage, children have mastered symbol systems, but they are unable to manipulate symbols logically. Children are developing the ability to use language to represent objects. This stage is also known as pre-logical, meaning children have not developed logical thinking abilities; their ideas are concrete and relate to concrete things. In the preoperational stage, Piaget identified three things children must overcome: perceptual centration, irreversibility, and egocentrism. Perceptual centration occurs when children are only able to identify or recognize one aspect or characteristic of an object. Children often classify objects by a single feature and disregard the others. Piaget used the water experiment to test his ideas. Children could determine that water in similar glasses were the same, but when the water was placed is a different container and the water levels appeared to be different, the child thought there were different amounts of water. Similarly, when children were given a group of objects, they were only able to

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classify them by one aspect, such as color. Children conquer decentration when they are able to consider more than one aspect at a time when classifying or solving problems. Irreversibility is another obstacle children have not mastered in the preoperational, prelogical stage of development. Irreversibility occurs when children cannot reverse a problem or situation to see how it occurred. They do not have the ability to think backwards. As children are able to relate past experiences, irreversibility decreases. The key feature in this stage is egocentrism, meaning, a childs thought and communication are typically about themselves. Children are unable to view ideas from other peoples perspectives. Piaget tested this with the mountain test. He had small children examine a mountain and asked what they saw from their perspective. He then asked what he could see from his perspective on the other side of the mountain. The child would then say the same thing that he sees. Children believe that others have the same perspective as they do; they believe others feel and see exactly as they do. Most children have a collective monologue, and the conversations the child has are typically about themselves.

Observations
Experiment 1 Task 1: In the first arrangement of pennies, there are an equal number of pennies in each row, but one row is spread out twice as much as the other. When asked to compare the pennies, Ethan identified the wider line of pennies as having more. The second arrangement had four pennies in one row, and five in another. Both rows were equal in length. When asked about the pennies, Ethan said the row with 5 pennies had more. In the final arrangement, there was a stack

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of five pennies, and then there were five pennies in a row. Before I could ask, Ethan had pointed at the stack of pennies and exclaimed, This has more!

Task 2: When presented with two identical glasses with water, the child examined them for a long time to determine if they were equal in water. He eventually reached the conclusion that they were the same. After pouring water from one of the cups into a much wider, larger cup, I asked Ethan to tell me if the cups were equal, or if more had more. He took a second to look at them, he looked at the cup that I had poured water out of and then exclaimed, Same! I was curious his reasoning, so I asked him to tell me why. He pointed to the empty cup and proceeded to tell me they were even because of that cup.

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Experiment 2 I presented Ethan with eight items. As I did, I asked him what they were. He was able to tell me a name for the following: Toothbrush, Car, bird, dog, guitar, apple, and a spoon. The only item that he could not identify was a batman pin. I slowly removed the items and placed them in an opaque bag. After 30 seconds, I told him that I would get everything out of the bag if he remembered them. He looked at me with a confused face, but then began listing the items. He was able to recall six of the eight items. He did not remember the batman pin or the car.

Analysis
Experiment 1 Experiment one tested Ethans ability to reverse a situation (irreversibility), and his perceptual centration. In task one; he was only able to answer one of the three questions properly. In the two that he answered wrong, the number of pennies was the same, but they were spaced differently. He had focused on only one aspect to determine which had more, the space that the pennies occupied. For the problem that he answered correctly, the pennies occupied the same amount of space. Therefore, this could not be the comparative aspect. He determined the one that has them closer together had more. From this experiment, it is obvious that Ethan has not mastered decenteration yet. In task two, both irreversibility and perceptual centration were tested. Ethan was able to tell me that the glasses, even though they were different sizes, contained the same amount of

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liquids. I wanted to know why he though this; I asked him why and he pointed at the empty cup. It appears if, from this experiment alone, that Ethan was able to reverse the situation and determine that the water was the same from the other cup. In these experiments, most children were shown to have different results. In piagets experiments most children at this level though that one glass was fuller than the other. Piaget applied the terms perceptual centration, irreversibility, and egocentrism to the stage based on his results from test such as these. Experiment 2 The second experiment tested Ethans ability to recall information. Ethan was able to recall 75% of the items. I believe this is very good for a child of his age. This tested his egocentrism in an indirect way. Ethan was able to recall objects that he could relate to and had past experiences with. When going through the items at the beginning of the experiment he was able to tell me something about the six objects that related to past experiences. When presented with the toy car, Ethan told me that he did not have any; he did not play with them. When shown the batman pin, Ethan did not know who batman was, and he had never seen a pin before so he could not relate the item to any past experiences. I assume the test results could have been very different if I had presented eight items that Ethan was completely unfamiliar with. At this stage, children are relating words to symbols; if he was presented items that he had no past experiences with; I do not believe he would be able to recall them as well.

Criticisms
There have been many criticisms to Piagets work over time. One of the most common criticisms for this stage of development is that the ability of young children was under estimated.

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Children seem to be more competent than Piaget theorized. It was said that Piagets clinical method did not show a childs full potential because it was isolated and not in a real world setting, making the problems difficult or confusing for a child to understand. Therefore, the childs capabilities were underestimated. Piaget used the mountain experiment to test children at this developmental level. Many say that this experiment was confusing to children and the questions that were asked were not clear. Others have said that the mountain experiment judges visual spatial abilities of children, rather than their viewpoints.

Further research has showed that children have a better understanding than Piaget gave them credit for. Children can see from others point-of-view much earlier than Piaget proposed, making children less egocentric that Piaget thought. Piaget is frequently criticized for providing very vague explanations of how children move from stage to stage. The stages do not seem to emerge and a specific time, and childrens thinking abilities are not as systematic as Piaget theories state. Some discredit Piaget for giving an age range, stating that students develop differently at different levels. Piagets research methods also received criticism. He preformed most of his experiments on his own children, and some on other educated, wealthy children. This becomes an issue when you try to apply his theories across a bigger population. His sample was very different from society. Additionally, his kids all had the same culture and social setting; this was not taken into account in Piagets research. He did not see how culture or social setting affected childrens abilities in regards to cognitive development.

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Application to K-12 Classroom

Piagets theory of cognitive development can (and should) be applied to classroom teaching. A teacher should keep in mind when working with kids their developmental level and how they learn. Teachers should be aware of what their students are cognitively capable of doing. At the preoperational stage, teachers should be aware of what students can comprehend and should not give assignments that are too logical or require students to do tasks in which they have no background knowledge or experiences. If teachers teach on a developmental level that is above that of the student, the student will not fully understand the material. Because students think concretely at this stage, teachers should open lessons with more concrete ideas.

Piaget theorized that children learn best when they are socially engaged with students on the same developmental level than when engaged with an adult. Therefore, it is important to allow time to discuss ideas and concepts in the classroom. Teachers should allow discovery learning to occur in their classroom to help with developmental growth. Children learn better at this stage when they can manipulate, explore, and discuss ideas with other students. The children will learn better with opportunities to actively explore concepts taught in school. In this style of learning, the teacher should act as a facilitator of knowledge, and should focus on the students learning processes. Lessons should focus on concrete ideas, and be given in a variety of forms (individual, group, partners.)

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Subject Information
For the research in the formal operations stage, Katie, a thirteen year old from Lake Dallas will complete two experiments: Experiment 1: Katie will be provided with five strips of paper, one with an image on it. Katie must identify which block of paper will cover the image. Experiment 2: Katie will have four cards with the following on them: A, 2, B, 3. The student will be asked the following If there is a vowel on one side of a card, then there is an even number on the other side of the card. What is the least number of cards you must turn over to determine if the statement is true or false?

Stage Description
Piaget classified children between the ages of eleven years old and up in the formal operational stage. In this stage, Piaget believed that children are capable of logical thinking, can think abstractly and can mentally manipulate problems. Children should develop the ability to think hypothetically and use deductive reasoning. Children are said to have entered the formal operational stage when they are able to think hypothetically about the future. They also begin to think about ideological problems and possibilities; their thinking becomes more abstract, and less tied to concrete ideas.

Children often think out all possible, logical possibilities in a situation before acting. For example, in a scientific experiment, students will think out each logical avenue before coming up with and testing a hypothesis. This is known as hypothetic deductive reasoning. Students

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consider all options, and then apply them to reality. Students are able to mentally apply an idea, and come to a hypothesis through mental trial and error. Students will also understand logical and complex forms of language such as metaphors and sarcasm. After mastering the formal stage, students will have developed adult intellectual skills.

Observations
Experiment 1 When Katie first sat down, I had the strips of blank paper in a neat row. I had placed a strip above the blank ones with a smiley face on it. I think instructed Katie to find the strip that would cover the one with the smiley face on it. Katie examined the pieces, and then grabbed the one that was a match and placed in on the smiley paper.

Experiment 2 I placed four note cards in front of Katie, each with one of the following written on them: A, 2, B, 3. Before I gave her any direction I asked her was a vowel was and what an even number was. She was able to define both correctly. I then continued with the experiment. I proceeded to read the following question to her: If there is

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a vowel on one side of a card, then there is an even number on the other side of the card. What is the least number of cards you must turn over to determine if the statement is true or false? She took a second to look at the cards, and even tried to flip them other so that she could just count. After a minute, she answered two. She had answered correctly, but I wanted to verify that it was for the right reason and not a guess. I asked her which two she would flip over. She would have flipped over A and 3, and explained that vowels are usually at the beginning and end, so she picked those two cards.

Analysis
Experiment 1 The first experiment went just as I expected it to after researching Piagets theories. Katie look at all papers first, mentally did a trial and error for each piece of paper and then picked the one that she hypothesized would fit best. This supports Piagets research that at this stage, students mentally consider options before acting. If she were in a lower developmental level, Katie would have probably picked up each piece of paper and compared it until she found one that fit. Instead, she mentally examined them and determined the proper piece. Experiment 2 Katie had more difficulty with the second experiment. I had asked her to explain what a vowel and even number were before we started, so I would know that her results would be accurate. She provided the correct answer, so after the experiment; I asked her why she chose the ones she did to see if it was a lucky guess or if she had logically figured out the answer. I assume Piaget asked for an explanation also to ensure that his results were accurate. Katie provided the

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correct answer, but based on her rationale, she did not understand the idea. Katie has not mastered formal operations stage because she has not developed deductive-hypothetical reasoning. In this experiment, she had to understand concrete ideas such as even numbers, but also had to think abstractly about what they mean when applied to the situation.

Criticisms
Piagets final stage, formal operational, has been criticized very heavily compared to other stages of development. The biggest reason for scrutiny is the time that people actually reach this stage. Piaget first said that the stages developed systematically, he then came back to say that the development is more like a spiral. Many levels of development overlap one another as we mature.

Many have said that not all people actually reach the final formal operational level of development. This criticism has also been combined with Piaget overestimating the capabilities of children in this stage. Students do not engage in formal thinking as frequently or as quickly as Piaget though. Because of these discrepancies, people have questioned his method of relating development to age level. Piaget believed that children would move through the developmental levels as they matured, ending in formal operations.

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Application to K-12 Classroom

Teachers of middle school and high school students need to be aware of students abilities in formal operations, and be able to recognize when students are thinking concretely or abstractly. Teachers should also provide several opportunities for students to apply abstract thinking into their learning. Just as I did with Katie in the experiments, it is critical that teachers ask why. Teachers should frequently encourage students to explain their rationale and their though process. This will help the teacher understand where the student is at and bring the learning to their level. To help students transition to a formal operational developmental stage, teachers should provide multiple opportunities for students to engage in hands-on experiments and activities. Students can be at different stages at this age, so it is important for teachers to be aware of student readiness. Younger students should not be taught concepts in a way that is above their developmental level. Teachers should facilitate learning while students are processing information through scientific experiments. The most important aspect of this facilitating is constant questioning of reason.