Chapter 2 - Cognitive and Linguistic Development Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage According to Piaget, the formal operations stage begins when the child is about 11 or 12 years old and continues to emerge until he or she is about 15. Hence, we are likely to see some (but perhaps not all) characteristics of this stage in secondary students

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage Characteristics of formal operational thought include the following: 1. Ability to deal with abstract, hypothetical, and contrary-to-fact ideas: the ability to think about concepts and ideas that have little or no basis in concrete reality

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage Example: students now have an easier time solving mathematical word problems that cannot be easily visualized Example: A student can comprehend negative numbers (e.G., Comprehending temperatures below 0˚)

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage Example: A student understands the concept of infinity (e.G., The notion that two parallel lines never touch even if they go on forever)

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage These three abilities—to reason logically about hypothetical ideas, to formulate and test hypotheses, and to separate and control variables—together allow the formal operational student to use the scientific method, in which several possible explanations for an observed phenomenon are proposed and tested in a systematic manner

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage 4. Proportional thought: conceptual understanding of proportions Example: A student works easily with fractions, decimals, and ratios Question for students: at what grade level do schools typically begin teaching students how to work with fractions? Is the timing appropriate

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage 5. Combinatorial thought: the ability to consider all possible combinations of several items in a systematic fashion Example: A student is given this problem:

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage Four good friends—Ann, Billy, Carla, and David—want to know how many combinations of themselves can go to the school dance. They can all go, various pairs of two friends can go, any one of them can go alone, and so on. How many possibilities are there?

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage The student systematically lists the possible combinations, arriving at the correct answer of 15 (each of the 4 children going alone, 6 combinations of two children going, 4 combinations of three, and the additional 1 combination of all four children).

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage 6. Construction of alternatives to reality: the ability to envision how the world might be different from the way it actually is Example: an adolescent begins to evaluate the legitimacy of his/her social, political, ethical, or religious issues Example: an adolescent is idealistic about how the world could be made a better place

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage According to Piaget, the idealism of the formal operational individual reflects formal operational egocentrism—an inability to separate abstract logical thinking from practical considerations and the unpredictability of human behavior

Piaget’s Formal Operational Stage David Elkind (1984) describes apparent hypocrisy in many adolescents. Although they express many ideals, they don’t expend much effort in working toward those ideals Example: A group of high school students solicited pledges for a “walk”—a benefit for a good environmental cause. As they walked along their route, they left numerous coke cans, fast food containers, napkins, etc. (Elkind, 1984)