Piaget's Four Stages Of Cognitive Development

As stated by David Elkind in the book Children and Adolescents, "Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist, has been studying the development of children's thinking for more than fifty years. Only in the last decade, however, has American psychology and education come to recognize that Piaget is in fact one of the giants of developing psychology." This idea, as well as others throughout my readings, has given me a better understanding of the way children develop psychologically through education and Piaget's stages of cognitive development.
Piaget proposed four different developmental stages of cognitive development. According to our text book, Educational Psychology Developing Learners, by Jeanne Ellis Ormrod, "Piaget hypothesized that major
physiological changes take place when children are about 2 years old, again when they are 6 or 7, and again around puberty, and that these changes allow the development of increasing complex thought." Piaget's four stages of cognitive development are sensorimotor stage (birth until 2 years) where schemes are based on behaviors and perceptions; schemes don't yet represent objects beyond a child's immediate view. The second stage is the preoperational stage (2 years until 6 or 7 years), where schemes now represent objects beyond a child's immediate view, but the child does not yet reason in logical adult like ways. The third stage is concrete operations stage (6 or 7 years until 11 or 12 years), where adult like logic appears but is limited to reasoning about concrete reality. Lastly, the fourth stage of Piaget's cognitive development is formal operations stage (11 or 12 years though adulthood), where logical reasoning processes are applied to abstract ideas as well as to concrete objects.
I chose to do my experiments on more than just a child and an adolescent. I thought it would be more interesting to test a few children in different stages along with an adolescent to see what results I came up with. I chose a boy who is a 6 year old kindergarten student who I will call child "A", a 6 year old first grade girl child "B", and a 7 year old girl who is in second grade, child "C".
I chose three different tasks to ask each student.
The first task was a conservation of liquid. I had two identical cups filled with the same amount of water, and one empty cup that was shorter and wider than the other two cups. I asked each student if the water was equal in the two cups, if they said yes, then I poured one of the cups of water into the third cup, and if they said no I would add a little more water to one of the cups until the student thought it had an equal amount of water in each cup and then I would pour one of the cups of water into the third one. Next I asked each student which cup had more water, the third cup that I just poured water into or the first cup that I never touched that still had water in it. My first thoughts before I started the experiments were how each child would perform. I knew each child personally which caused me to have different predictions based on what I already knew about each child, and I didn't just base my predictions on their age and what stage they most likely should be in according to their age. I work with these students a lot after school, and based on what I know about each child I made my hypothesis about how each child would perform on the
task.
My predictions for the first task, on conservation were also influenced by information in Barry Wadsworth's book, PIAGET'S theory of cognitive development.
Wadsworth said, "The child does not develop conservation schemata overnight in an all-or-nothing manner. Conservation concepts are acquired slowly after much experience and subsequent assimilation and accommodation." Based off of this information and what I know about each child I thought child "A" and child "B" would guess one of the cups to have more water and I predicted child "C" would say both the cups have an equal amount of water. After completing the experiment, child "A" believed that cup number one had more water in it. I was correct with my prediction; the boy thought there was more water in one of the cups because he is still in the preoperational stage and has a lack of conservation. He isn't able to realize that nothing was changed with the water other than the transfer to a different cup, no extra water was added or taken away from the amount of water that the cups contained and therefore the cups of water are equal. With child "B", I was wrong with my prediction. She was able to determine that both the cups contained the same amount of water. When she gave me her answer "equal" she felt somewhat unsure with her response, as if she wasn't sure if she was right or wrong. She knew that extra water wasn't added so both cups should contain the same amount of water but in her mind the cups didn't look equal because with one of the cups the water level was a lot higher. My last prediction with child "C" was correct. She felt very confident with her answer, almost as if I was asking her a stupid question.
Both child "B" and "C" seemed to be in the concrete operations stage, they were able to determine that both amounts stayed the same because there was no change in the amount of water by adding or taking away extra water. Both child "B" and "C" were able to think logically based on the facts given to them. I found it very interesting to see the difference between each child's way in solving the task, and I didn't realize that the difference between a kindergarten student and a first grade student were that big of a jump from one year to the next.
My second experiment was a classification experiment. I put out 10 paper apples, 7 of which were red and three yellow. I told all three children that I have 10 paper apples, 7 red ones and 3 yellow one. I then asked them if I had more paper apples or red apples. Before my experiment I can up with a hypothesis for each child. I thought child "A" would say that I had more red apples because I believe he is in the preoperational stage and exhibit single classification because I didn't think that he would be ale to recognize that the red apples could also be paper apples. I predicted that child "B" would say there are more paper apples because after experiment one, she was able to recognize that both cups had an equal amount of water, even though she was unsure about her answer. I also predicted that child "C" would say there are more paper apples because I believe she is capable of multiple classification and will be able to classify both the apples as red or yellow and paper as well.
I was right with my predictions with both child "A" and "C", but I was wrong with child "B". Child "A" and "B" were unable to recognize the apples as both red and paper; therefore both children were unable to demonstrate multiple classification. I found it interesting because child "B" was unsure about the question, in her response she said, "I don't get it", referring to the question and then she said, "red apples". This showed me she was trying really hard to process the question and think about it logically but she just wasn't able to recognize that the red apples were also paper apples, and I was beginning to think that maybe child "B" was in the in between stage. Child "C" was able to recognize that the apples were both red and paper; therefore she is capable of multiple classification. She also demonstrated deductive reasoning because while she was completing the task she picked up the pieces of paper of paper and felt them to make sure they were paper. At first she didn't think the apples were paper because I made the apples out of cardstock which is thicker than normal construction paper. So I went ahead and reread the question, "I have ten paper apples, 7 of which are red and 3 yellow. Do I have more red apples or paper apples?" making sure she heard me say the word paper.
My last experiment was a reversibility task. I wrote 5+3=8 on a piece of paper and asked each student to reverse this equation. Since this task can only be completed in the concrete operational stage I predicted that only child "C" would be able to complete this task. Again I was correct with two out to three of my predictions. Child "A" was the only child that was not able to complete this task correctly. Both child "B" and "C" were able to reverse the equation and wrote 8-5=3. I wasn't surprised at all that child "A" couldn't complete the task and that child "C" was able to easily complete it, but I was surprised to see child "B" complete the task as well.
After completing all three tasks with the three students I came to some conclusions about each child. It was obvious to me that child "A" was in stage two, the preoperational stage because he wasn't able to complete any of the three tasks, and he had a lack of conservation, irreversibility, and could only demonstrate single classification. It was also easy to tell that child "C" was in stage three, the concrete operational stage because she was able to complete all three tasks, and had an understanding of conservation, reversibility and was able to demonstrate multiple classification. I had a tough time trying to figure out which stage child "B" was in. She was able to complete two out of the three tasks correctly and had an understanding of conservation, and reversibility, but wasn't able to demonstrate multiple classification. I think either she didn't understand what I was asking her to do in the second task, or maybe she really didn't realize that the apples could be both red and paper. If that's the case then I would say she is in the in between stage, between stage two preoperational and stage three concrete operational.
I did the same three experiments with a 19 year old adolescent boy as well.
I predicted that he would complete all three tasks correctly and easily with out any problems or difficulties. The first task of conservation was a no brainier for the boy. He said right away they both are equal, so I moved onto the next task. Task two, on classification, was just as easy for the boy. He had to think about it for a second though and then he said, "This one is kind of tricky because you are trying to make me say the red apples, but really all the apples are paper so there are more paper apples." The last task on reversibility the boy thought was confusing. The problem he was given was 5+3=8, at first he wrote 3+5=8 and I told him no you need to reverse the problem. The boy was still confused and then he said, "Oh duh," 8-5=3. It was obvious that the adolescent boy is in the fourth stage, formal operations stage, of Piaget's cognitive development theory, because he can think about concepts that have little or no basis in concrete reality including concepts that are abstract and
hypothetical.
In conclusion I have learned a lot about how Piaget has had a huge impact on the we learn about children's cognitive development. Children may learn at different levels but they will all go through Piaget's four stages of cognitive development in the same order, sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and lastly formal operations stage. My experiments have taught me a lot about how children in each stage process information, and come to conclusions. I have enjoyed reading and learning more about the cognitive processes that children go though from birth to adulthood and hope to learn throughout my studies of education.