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.