The Intuitive Period Conservation

Starter 10 mins Define the 3 following terms with examples: Egocentrism Animism Centration Devise a less culturally biased way to test egocentrism than the 3 mountains task?

Errors In Judgement In the latter period of the pre-op stage children are heavily influenced by the appearance of objects.

Conservation The characteristic errors in thought, especially egocentrism, begin to decline. However, children are still unable to perform mental operations- such as conservation. Conservation is the ability to understand that redistributing material does not affect its mass, number or volume

What did Piaget do? Conservation of Mass Piaget gave a child two equal measures of modelling clay and asked if there was the same amount in both. On getting the answer ‘same’, he rolled out one of the balls into a long sausage and asked the same question again. The Preoperational child is likely to say that there is more clay in the sausage.

Conservation of Number Piaget counted out 2 sets of 6 beads, and put them into 2 parallel lines of equal length. After asking whether one row has more beads than the other or whether they are the same, and getting the expected answer, he spread one row out so that it is longer. The pre-op child is likely to respond that there are more in the longer row.

Conservation of Volume Piaget and Szeminska (1941) Aim To find out at what age children conserve volume. Method The researchers presented the children with 2 identical beakers filled up to the same level with water. They asked each child whether there was the same amount of water in the two beakers or more in one than the other.

Most children said the same. The researchers then poured the water from one beaker into a third, taller, thinner beaker. The previous question was repeated. Results Most children under 7 years said that there was more water in the taller, thinner beaker. (They failed to conserve) In contrast, most children aged 7 and over answered that there was the same amount in both beakers. The researcher asked the child to explain their answer to be sure of understanding

Conclusion There must be a very significant change in cognitive ability at around 7 years on average. When the ability to conserve is achieved the child enters the stage of Concrete Operations.

Plenary As a group Mind Map the Preoperational stage including both periods. Discuss the problems with the experiments within this stage and identify some problems with the designs.