Administering a Piagetian Conservation Task (pp. 182-184); (Figure 7.5; p. 183)

The Conservation Task with liquid is an example of Piaget's most famous experiment. He designed an experiment to test a child's development of conservation - the awareness that two things that are equal remain so if their shape is altered so long as nothing is added or taken away. Piaget found that children do not fully understand this principle until the stage of concrete operations, normally in middle childhood.

Directions: this assignment will conduct a very simple experiment; a test of the inability to conserve using children who are currently in Piaget's stage of preoperational thought, which begins in toddlerhood and goes into middle childhood. When working on the conservation task with water, preoperational children tend to concentrate on the height of the water while ignoring the width. That is, they tend to focus on only one aspect of a situation and neglect others, often coming to illogical conclusions. They cannot decenter or think simultaneously about several aspects of a situation.

1. Your task is to show a child (4-6 years old) two identical clear glasses, both short and wide and holding the same amount of water.

2. Then pour the water from one glass into a third taller, thinner glass.

3. Now ask the child whether both glasses contain the same amount of water, or whether one contains more. Wait for the child to answer (most likely he/she will say that the tall glass has more water).

4. Then ask the child why he/she answered the way they did.

5. Then pour the water from the tall glass back into the short glass and ask the child whether the glasses now have the same amount of water (if the child is truly preoperational he/she will say they are equal again).

Note: At no time should you laugh at or in any way make the child feel as though they are doing or saying anything wrong. The child's responses are likely to be consistent with, and therefore correct for, his/her stage of cognitive development. Always be encouraging and supportive of the child's responses.

Write up what you did and how you did it. Include the information from 1-5 above and 1-5 below.

1. For the sake of privacy/anonymity, choose a fictitious name to refer to the child in your write-up.

2. Write down the child's age.

3. Write down exactly what you ask the child.

4. Write down the child's exact answers to your questions.

5. Respond to the following questions: Based on the research in the textbook, is the child in the stage of preoperational thought? What specific evidence leads you to draw this conclusion? Explain, providing examples.