THE INFLUENCE OF SELECTED SCIENCE EXPERIENCES ON ' TRE ATTAINMENT OF CONCRETE OPERATIONS BY FIRST GRADE CHILDREN ' Thesis for the Degree of Ph. D. , MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSWY ” DONALUBERNARD NEUMAN 1968 MILD 55' m L. . Univemity This is to certify that the thesis entitled THE INFLUENCE OF SELECTED SCIENCE EXPERIENCES ON THE ATTAINMENT OF CONCRETE OPERATIONS BY FIRST GRADE CHILDREN presented bg Donald Bernard Neuman has been accepted towards fulfillment of the requirements for Ph.D. degree in Education Q/ 277% )77/I EML/ Major professor Date July 27, 1968 /‘ ' 0-169 etc ABSTRACT THE INFLUENCE OF SELECTED SCIENCE EXPERIENCES ON THE ATTAINMENT OF CONCRETE OPERATIONS BY FIRST GRADE CHILDREN by Donald Bernard Neuman The main objective of this study was to investigate the influences of certain science experiences on the attainment of concrete operations by first grade children as revealed by selected Piagetian conservation tasks. These tasks involved the conservation of liquid quantity, conservation of continuous solid quantity, conservation of discontinuous solid quantity, and conservation of weight. The study was carried out in Okemos, Michigan and involved all eighty—seven children in the three first grade classes and one first-second grade transition class in the Cornell School. At the outset of the study, each child was randomly assigned to one of four classes for the purpose of studying science. Two classes, designated as the experi- mental group by the investigator, studied science by means of the methods and materials developed by the Science Cur- riculum Improvement Study (SCIS). The other two classes, designated as the control group, studied science by means of the school's usual program. Donald Bernard Neuman For the purpose of determining differences in develOp- mental growth between the experimental and control groups, all children were shown sixteen-millimeter color motion pictures of the four conservation tasks. Tape-recorded sound tracks consisting of information pertaining to the films and instructions for answering a question about each film were also presented to the children. The children were given a pre-test consisting of the four films. After an eighteen-week treatment period, all of the children were given a post-test consisting of the same four conservation films. The data to which statistical tests were applied were obtained from the results of the conservation tests. Parametric and non-parametric models were used to analyze these data. On the basis of the analyses, the following conclusions were indicated: 1. There were no differences in the attainment of concrete operations between children who studied science by means of the SCIS program and chil- dren who studied science by means of the usual program. 2. There were no differences in the attainment of concrete operations between boys and girls. 3. The girls who studied science by means of the SCIS program scored significantly higher on the post—test than on the pre-test. Donald Bernard Neuman No conclusive evidence was produced to indicate a dominance of the experience factor in promoting attainment of concrete Operations. Children appeared able to conserve weight at the same age that they conserved quantity. THE INFLUENCE OF SELECTED SCIENCE EXPERIENCES ON THE ATTAINMENT OF CONCRETE OPERATIONS BY FIRST GRADE CHILDREN By Donald Bernard Neuman A THESIS Submitted to Michigan State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY College of Education 1968 (A \5.‘ U) U‘ D \\ “ \.) ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The writer is deeply indebted to Dr. John M. Mason, chairman of the doctoral committee. His encouragement, understanding, and wisdom were a continuous source of guidance and motivation. Appreciation is expressed to the members of the doctoral committee, Dr. Frederic B. Dutton, Dr. William K. Durr, Dr. Howard Hagerman, and Dr. Lee Shulman for their interest and suggestions throughout the course of this investigation. Dr. Julian R. Brandou, director of the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center, was especially thoughtful and considerate in providing the support of the center facilities. To Dr. Glenn D. Berkeimer, coordinator of the Michi— gan State University Trial Center for the Science Curricu- lum Improvement Study, goes sincere thanks for his help, advice, and encouragement. Dr. Kenneth Olsen, Superintendent of Schools in Okemos, Michigan; Miss Marcia Boznango, Curriculum Co- ordinator of the Okemos Public Schools; Mr. John Waldo, Principal of the Cornell School; and Mrs. Connie Emschwiller, Miss Carrie Owens, Mrs. Mary Ann Ridenour, and Mrs. Lawain Willett, the teachers involved in this ii study, deserve special praise for their cooperation and assistance. Deep appreciation is expressed to Dr. Maryellen Mc- Sweeney, who provided the formulas for computing the analysis of covariance and spent many hours advising the writer on statistical techniques. Mr. Edward McCoy and Mr. Robert Blunt of the Michi- gan State University Instructional Media Center were most helpful in the preparation of student evaluation materials. Deepest appreciation goes to my entire family, who served both as a guiding inspiration and a source of encouragement throughout the course of this work. Special thanks go to my wife for her help in administering the pre- and post—tests and for typing the rough c0pies of this dissertation and to my four children who put up with the rigors of a spartan life for these past three years. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENTS . . . . . . . . . . . . . ii LIST OF TABLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . vi LIST OF FIGURES . . . . . . . . . . . . . viii LIST OF APPENDICES . . . . . . . . . . . . ix Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . 1 Need for the Study . . . . . . . . 5 Purpose of the Study . . . . . . . 8 Background. . . . . . . . . 9 Design of the Study. . . . . . . . lO Hypotheses. . . . . . . . . . . 10 Definitions . . . . . . ll Assumptions and Limitations . . . . . 15 Overview of the Thesis. . . . . . . 17 II. REVIEW OF LITERATURE . . . . . . . . 18 Overview of the Theory. . . . . . . 18 Concrete Operational Stage . . . . . 22 Conservation . . . . 26 The Role of Conservation in Concrete Operations . . . . . 29 Acceleration of Concrete Operations . . 32 Studies Concerned with the Basic Theory . 36 Studies Concerned with Concrete Operations and Conservation . . . . 39 Studies Confirming the Validity of Conservation . . . 39 Affirmation of the Three Stages of. Conservation . . 42 Studies Concerned with Factors Related to Stage Acquisition. . . . . . . A“ ' Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . 55 III. IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STUDY . . . . . . 59 Background of the Study . . . . . . 59 General Design of the Study . . . . . 60 The Community. . . . . . . . . . 61 The Children . . . . . . . . . . 61 The Classes . . . . . . . . . . 62 iv Chapter Page The Teachers . . . . . . . . 62 Methods and Materials . . . . . . . 6A Experimental Group . . . . . . . . 65 Control Group. . 69 Preparation of the Evaluative Instrument. 7A Films . . . . . . . . . . 74 Sound Production. . . . . . . . . 77 Response Form Preparation. . 77 Description of the Evaluative Instrument. 78 Methods of Collecting Data . . . 82 Hypotheses and Models Used to Test the Hypotheses . . . . . . . . . . 8A Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . 92 IV. RESULTS AND EVALUATION. . . . . . . . 9A Collection and Compilation of Data. . . 9A Hypotheses Tested . . . . . . 95 Changes in Student Population . . . . 97 Pre— Test Data. . . . . . . 98 Conservation of Quantity Data . . 99 Differential Acquisition of Conservation of Quantity of Boys and Girls. . . 101 Interaction between Treatments and Sexes. 101 Conservation of Weight. . . . . 103 Conservation of Liquid Quantity. . . . 105 Conservation of Continuous Solid Quantity . . . . . . . . . . 106 Conservation of Discontinuous Solid Quantity . . . . . . . . . . 108 Other Findings . . . . . . . . . 109 Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . 110 V. CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS. . . . . 113 Pupils and Procedures . . . . . . . 113 Findings . . . . . . . . . 113 Discussion of Results . . . . . . . 115 General Conclusions . . . 121 Implications for Science Educators. . . 122 Additional Implications . . . . . . 122 Recommendations . . . . . . . . . 12A APPENDICES. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127 BIBLIOGRAPHY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 160 Table 10. ll. 12. 13. LIST OF TABLES Piagetian Terminology as Suggested by Hunt. Composition of the Four First Grade Science Classes in the Cornell School Activities and Related Skills in the SCIS Program . . . . . . . . . . Mental Operations Related to the Various SCIS Activities. . . . . . . . . Science Activities of the Experimental and .Control Groups . . . . . . . . Summary of Hypotheses and Models Used to Analyze Data . . . . . . . . . Number of Pupils at the Start of the Study. Number of Pupils at the Completion of the Study . . . . . . . . . . . Mean Scores of the Experimental and Control Groups on the Pre-Test of Conservation of Quantity . . . . . . Mean Scores of the Experimental and Control Groups on the Post-Test of Conservation of Quantity Analysis of Covariance Data Pre-Test, Post- Test, and Adjusted Results Analyzing the Scores of Seventy—Two Children on the Test of Conservation of Quantity Number of the Boys and Girls Who were Able to Conserve Quantity Under the Treatment and Non-Treatment Conditions. . . Analysis of Data on the Interaction Between Treatment and Sex on a Test of Conservation of Quantity Using Goodman's Large Sample Multiple Comparison. . . . . vi Page 20 63 7O 71 75 93 97 97 98 99 100 103 103 Table Page 14. Chi Square Analysis of the Forty-Three Boys and Thirty-Seven Girls on the Conservation of Weight Task . . . . . . . . . . 105 15. Chi Square Analysis of the Eighty Children on the Conservation of Liquid Quantity Task. 106 16. Chi Square Analysis of the Eighty Children on the Conservation of Continuous Solid Quantity Task. . . . . . . . . . . 107 17. Chi Square Analysis of the Eighty Children on the Conservation of Discontinuous Solid Quantity Task. . . . . . . . . . . 109 18. Chi Square Analysis of the Number of Con- servers and Non—Conservers on the Four Conservation Tasks . . . . . . . . . 110 19. t-test for Determining Significance Between Pre-Test and Post-Test Means of Experi- mental Group Boys, Experimental Group Girls, Control Group Boys, and Control Group Girls on the Test of Conservation of Quantity, N = 80 . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111 20. Summary of the Analyses of Data for Each of the Major Hypotheses Tested . . . . . . 112 vii Figure LIST OF FIGURES The Sequence of TOpics Taught in the Material Objects Unit to Pupils in the Experimental Group. . . . . . . Beakers and Cylinder as They Appeared in Film Clip One . . . . . . . . . . . . Pla- -dough "Pies" as They Appeared in Film Clip Two . . . . . . . . . . . Scale and Pla— —dough Shapes as They Appeared in Film Clip Three. . . . . . Block "Buildings" as They Appeared in Film Clip Four. . . . . . . viii Page 66 79 8O 81 81 Appendix A. LIST OF APPENDICES Scripts Used in the Production of the Four Film Clips . . . . . . Scripts Used to Tape Audio In-Put Answer Forms Procedure Followed in the Training Session for Using the Answer Form Analysis of Covariance Computational Formulas. . . . . . . Results of the Pre-Test and Post-Test of Conservation of Quantity by Class ix Page 127 132 137 1A0 1143 151 CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION Science educators have been interested in promoting and improving elementary school science for more than one hundred years.1 As early as 1860, "object teaching," which emphasized description of animate and inanimate objects and was based on the theoretical work of Pesta— lozzi, was made the basis for virtually all of the elemen- tary science taught in the United States.2 A shift in emphasis occurred near the end of the Nineteenth Century. The theories and practices of Hall, Parker, and Jackman resulted in the "nature study" movement. This movement lent strong support for the use of science as the unifying principle in elementary school curricula.3 By the 1920's, enthusiasm for "nature study" waned and new ideas were beginning to make an impact on science 1Herbert A. Smith, "Historical Background of Elemen- tary Science," in Edward Victor and Marjorie Lerner (Eds.), Readings in Science Education for the Elementary School (New York: The MacMillan Company, 1967), p. 3?. 2Ibid. 3Ibid., p. 36. instruction. Peirce and James contributed a theory of pragmatism in which the link between concept and experi- ence was considered fundamental. About the same time, Dewey stated that the methodology of science was of equal or greater importance than the actual knowledge accumu— lated.“ The works of Peirce, James, and Dewey contributed greatly to the eventual develOpment of the inquiry approach to science in the 1930's. An important step forward in science education took place in 1932 when the Thirty-First Yearbook of the National Society for the Study of Education5 was published. This yearbook stressed the need for an integrated K-l2 science program and outlined the major generalizations of science as objectives of instruction. The influence of this yearbook was exemplified by the great amount of research devoted to identifying major principles of science and their relationship to general education that took place in the years following its publication.6 Two subsequent ulbid., p. 37. 5National Society for the Study of Education, A Program for Teaching Science, Thirty-First Yearbook, Part IIBloomington, Indiana: Public School Publishing Company, 1932). 6Smith, Op. cit., p. 39. yearbooks,7’8 published by the Society, attempted to bring the content material of the Thirty-First Yearbook up-to- date and to place emphasis on the importance of science education in a society becoming increasingly more dependent on the products of science and technology. By the middle years of the 1950's, interest in the quality of the science education American children were receiving had become widespread. Scientific discoveries and advanced methodology had stimulated scientists, educa— tors, and the general public to recognize the need to upgrade and update science programs at all levels of American education. The Soviet Union's spectacular and highly publicized Sputnik success in 1957 added a sense of urgency to the new wave of interest in science educa- tion. Concern over what was wrong with general education, and in particular, what was wrong with science education, brought the influence of the Federal Government into the picture through such agencies as The National Science Foundation and the United States Office of Education. 7National Society for the Study of Education, Science Education in American Schools, Forty-Sixth Yearbook, Part I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 19A7). 8National Society for the Study of Education, Rethinking_§cience Education, Fifty-Ninth Yearbook, Part I (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1960). Within a year of the Sputnik launching eleven pro— jects designed to revamp the science curriculum had been initiated at a number of American universities.9 Included among these eleven were projects whose purposes were to redesign the curriculum in each of the major areas of science education—-physics, chemistry, biology, earth science, general science, and elementary science. Four goals shared by all of the projects were: 1. Updating the content of science curriculum materials. 2. Emphasizing the processes of science. 3. Stimulating pupil inquiry by setting problem solving situations for the pupils. A. Providing manipulative materials to augment course content. As the movement for science curricular changes grew into a veritable national movement, the theoretical work of Jean Piaget became of interest to many of the individ— uals associated with the developing science projects. Jean Piaget, a biologist, epistemologist, and developmental psychologist, had been at work for almost forty years at the International Center of Genetic Epistemology in Geneva, Switzerland. Between 1918 and 1958 he had published almost 9J. David Lockard, Report of the International Clear— inghouse on Science and Mathematics Curricular Developments (College Park, Maryland: University of Maryland, 19677. two hundred articles and thirty books.10 It was not, however, until the latter half of the 1950's that Piaget's findings had any marked impact upon the thinking of educators in the United States. Piaget's investigations were concerned with how children react to certain known facts; how children behave inELproblem solving situation; how the structure of the child's develOping intellect evolves through a series of increasingly more complex ontogenetic stages; and how the structure of knowledge can best be arranged to coincide with the structures of the child's intellect at a particular time in the developmental sequence. Although Piaget's work stressed cognitive develop— ment, his findings pointed to relationships between how children grow and how they learn. These findings and the implications that they have for setting learning situations furnished the bases for the thinking that has been asso— ciated with the development of some of the methods and materials which have been incorporated into certain of the current science curriculum projects. Need for the Study.-—A recent reportll indicates that at least twenty-one unique and independent science projects are being developed at the present time. While 10David Elkind, "Giant in the Nursery," New York Times Magazine, May 26, 1968. llLockard, loc. cit. no reliable count is available on the percentage of elemen— tary schools that have adOpted new science programs,12 this investigator's review of the literature and personal conversations with science teachers in elementary schools lead him to believe that the number is fewer than ten per cent Thus, it seems reasonable to assume that a large number of elementary schools can be expected to examine one or more of the newer programs when science curriculum changes are undertaken. In examining the newer science programs, schools should consider the degree to which the goals of the new program coincide with the general and specific objectives of the schools. It is the opinion of this writer that one objective of all schools in America should be the maximum deveIOpment of each child to that child's fullest intellectual potential. Thus, changes in curriculum should be considered by the school in terms of the influ- ence of the new curriculum on a child's intellectual behavior. These behavioral changes, called developmental growth, represent changes in the individual's perceptions and thinking as he passes through an ordered and invariant series of intellectual stages. In this sense, develop— mental growth is frequently referred to as ontogenetic growth. l2Wayne Welch, "The Impact of National Curriculum Projects—-The Need for Accurate Assessment," School Science and Mathematics, 68:225-23“, March, 1968. Many of the new elementary science projects claim, as one of their major goals, the intellectual develOpment of children who study science by means of their methods and materials. For example, two of the most influential elementary science programs presently being implemented 13 in America, Science—-A Process Approach, developed by the Commission on Science Education of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS),lu develOped under the leadership of Karplus and Thier at the University of California at Berkeley,are concerned with developmental growth. Although the approaches and the conceptual em- phases of these two programs are quite different, key aspects of their respective goals are of a developmental nature. The AAAS science program, which is heavily process oriented defines process in the following terms: The third and perhaps most widely important meaning of process introduces the consideration of human intellectual development. From this point of view, processes are in a broad sense 'ways of processing information'. Such process— ing becomes more complex as the individual develOps from early childhood onward.l The Commission on Science Education of AAAS also states that: l3Robert Gagne, Science--A Process Approach, Pamphlet 67-12, 1967. 1“Robert Karplus and Herbert Thier, A New Look at Elementary School Science (Chicago: Rand McNally Company, 15 Gagne, 0p. cit., p. A. Science-—A Process Approach attempts to deal realistically with the develOpment of intellectual skills, in the sense that the goals to be achieved by any single exercise are modest. In a longer- term sense, substantial and general intellectual deveIOpment %S an orderly progression of learning activities.1 The SCIS program, which is more conceptually oriented, also describes its goals in developmental terms: The program of the Science Curriculum Improvement Study is aimed at . . . [helping] the children's intellectual deveIOpment reach the formal operational level. The premise of our program is that it is possible for the school to have a conscious influence on the development of its pupils in order to produce a more significant and a more useful understanding of natural phenomena by the time they are in their teens. Puppose of the Study.-—The main purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of certain science experi- ences as developed by SCIS, on the develOpmental growth of first grade pupils as reflected in their performance on selected Piagetian conservation tasks. These tasks in- volved the conservation of liquid quantity, conservation of continuous solid quantity, conservation of discontinu- ous solid quantity, and conservation of weight. The experiences were provided to the children by means of the methods and materials of a science program 16Ibid., p. 5. 17Robert Karplus, "The Science Curriculum Improve- ment Study," in Piaget Rediscovered: A Report on the Conference on Cognitive Studies and Curriculum Development, Part III, ed.by R. E. Ripple and V. N. Rockcastle (Ithica, New York: Cornell University, 196A), pp. 113—118. developed after 1958. The affect on the developmental growth of a child was determined by his acquisition of the concrete operational stage. Acquisition of the stage was signified by the child's ability to conserve three kinds of quantity--liquid, continuous solid, and discon- tinuous solid quantity. In addition to the main purpose, the study was also designed to investigate the differen- tial rates of achievement of conservation of quantity and weight in the children who served as subjects for this research. Background.--In mid-1967 Michigan State University actively became a Trial Center for the Science Curriculum Improvement Study (SCIS) program. During the summer of 1967, the superintendent of schools in Okemos, Michigan contacted the Trial Center Coordinator at the University concerning the possibility of using SCIS materials in a school in Okemos. The Trial Center coordinator invited the investigator to design a study that would provide useful information about the SCIS program to both the Trial Center and the Okemos School District. After a series of meetings in- volving both school district and university personnel the present study concerning the influence of the experiences associated with the SCIS program on a child's attainment of the concrete Operational stage was undertaken. 10 Design of the Study.-—The design of the study pro- vided for an eXperimental group Of pupils and a control group. Eighty—seven first grade and first-second grade (transition) pupils Of the Cornell School, Okemos, Michi- gan, were randomly assigned by sex to four teachers for instruction in science. Two of the classes were arbi— trarily designated the experimental group. These pupils were taught science by means Of the methods and materials prescribed in the SCIS elementary science program. The two remaining classes constituted the control group. The control pupils received the school's regular science program for first grade children. The study began in January, 1968. A pre-test, con- sisting of filmed adaptations of four Piagetian conserva- tion tasks, was administered at the beginning of the investigation. The treatment period was Of eighteen weeks duration, and the classes met for three thirty minute sessions per week. At the completion of the treatment period, a post—test consisting of the same filmed adapta- tions Of Piaget conservation tasks was administered. Hypotheses.--This study was designed to measure developmental growth in first grade children exposed to different kinds of science eXperiences. Determination of developmental growth was based on a child's ability to recognize the invariance Of quantity and weight of an object in the face of physical deformations involving that Object, 11 Seven research hypotheses were prOposed by the investigator for the purposes of designing and carrying out the study. They were as follows: 1. Children who study science by means of SCIS methods and materials will score higher on a test of conservation Of quantity than children who have the usual science program. Girls will score higher than boys on a test of conservation of quantity. There is a difference in the prOportion of girls and boys who conserve after studying science by means of SCIS methods and materials as compared to studying science by means of the usual program. More children who study science by means Of SCIS methods and materials will conserve weight than children who have the usual science program. More children who study science by means of SCIS methods and materials will conserve liquid quantity than children who have the usual science program. MOrechildren who study science by means of SCIS methods and materials will conserve continuous solid quantity than children who have the usual science program. More children who study science by means of SCIS methods and materials will conserve discontinuous solid quantity than children who have the usual science program. Definitions.—-For the purpose of this study, certain terms were used in accordance with the following explana- tions and/or defintions: 1. Stage. Cognitive development takes place in levels or steps characterized by the progressive organization of the composite structures of l2 mental Operations. Each structure constitutes attainment of one level and the starting point of the next level.18 Such a level was inter— preted as a stage of development. 2. Pre—Operations. This is the developmental stage typical of a two to seven year Old child. This stage as described by Piaget and his co- workers is marked by the following character- istics: a. Egocentrism-—the child neither feels the compunction nor is able to make judgments from points of view other than his own. b. Centration--the child shows a tendency to center his attention on a single, striking feature of an Object to the total neglect of other aspects of that object. O. Disequilibrium--a principal characteristic of the pre-operational child is the absence of a stable equilibrium between what a child perceives and what he is capable of understanding. d. Irreversibility——a cognitive organization is irreversible if it cannot pursue a series of reasonings or follow a series of 18Barbel Inhelder, "Aspects of Piaget's Genetic Ap- proach to Cognition," in Thought in the Younnghild by W. Kessen and C. Kuhlman, editors, Monograph, Society for Research in Child Development, 1962, No. 83, p. 23. 13 transformations and then reverse direction in thought and find again the point of departure.19 3. Concrete operations. This is the stage at which the child's thoughts acquire increased flexibility. Concrete operations manifest themselves in the child's ability to shift back and forth between part-part and part-whole relationships for classes and sub-classes and in the ability to function intellectually on tasks requiring reversibility, decentration, serial ordering, and adding and multiplying of classes.20 A. Conservation. A particular experienced quality; matter, weight, volume, number, or area is per— ceived as invariant by the child regardless of the physical transformations in state or shape that might be observed.21 5. Conservation of quantity. Conservation Of quantity is sometimes called conservation Of matter. When a child Observes a physical 19Flavell, Op. cit., pp. 156-159. 20J. McVicker Hunt, Intelligence and Experience (New York: Ronald Press, 1961). 21Barbel Inhelder and Jean Piaget, The Growth of Logical Thinking from Childhood to Adolescence (New York: Basic Books Inc., 1958), p. 32. l4 rearrangement of an amount of matter, and he is able to conserve he will realize that there is no change in the total quantity Of matter. He will recognize that a change in one physical dimension is compensated by a concomitant change in another dimension. In this study, conservation of quantity is composed of three sub-tasks: conservation of liquid quantity, conservation Of continuous solid quantity, and conservation Of discontinuous solid quantity. 6. Non—conservation. The inability of a child to recognize the invariance of various empirical factors, such as weight or number, as they are physically transformed signifies that the child is at a less advanced stage of intellectual development. The youngster's thought processes have not develOped to the point where they can correct for what Heraclitus called the "illusory flux of appearances"22 or what Bruner terms "perceptual seduction."23 7. Transition. The child's thought processes do not usually evolve directly from a state Of 22Hunt, O . cit., p. 205. 23Jerome Bruner, "On the Conservation of Liquids," in Studies i9 Cognitive Growth, by J. Bruner, R. Olver, and P. Greenfield, editors (New York: John Wiley and Sons, Inc., 1966), Chapter 9, p. 189. 15 non—conservation to conservation but appear to go through an intermediate state marked by indecision and vacillation. Sometimes the child asserts conservation of an empirical factor while later he denies conservation of the same factor. Often he is "seduced" first by one dimension of a diSplay, then by another dimension. Acceleration. In accordance with the literature, acceleration is used interchangeably with induc- tion in this study. Both terms infer that the acquisition of a developmental stage has been speeded up. Assumptions and Limitations.-—In designing this study the following assumptions were made: 1. Piagetian-like conservation tasks were apprOpri-. ate for standardization on film and audio tape. The filmed conservation tasks were valid for evaluation purposes. One criterion for measuring the success of a science program was how well it facilitated or accelerated achievement of higher-order develop- mental stages. Children were constantly exposed tO instructional materials such as television and motion pictures in the schools. Therefore the input Of stimuli (for evaluation purposes) by means Of filmed 10. 16 sequences was consonant with usual Operating procedures in the classroom. Indication that a child conserved matter signified that the child had achieved the stage Piaget calls concrete Operations. The Hawthorne effect was controlled by provid- ing both the treatment and control groups with additional materials and equipment. Internal validity was controlled by random assignment Of pupils to the two treatments. Teachers using SCIS materials followed the teacher's manual very closely and taught all Of the agreed-upon activities. The pre-test was of no significant learning value. Information about teaching methods and materials was not exchanged between experimental and con- trol group teachers. The following are recognized limitations of this study: 1. The small size of the pOpulation and the fact that it was drawn from one school in a rural- suburban community limited the generalizability of this study. The small number of films and limited test score range limited the chances of statistical significance. 17 3. Limited aSpects of the concept conservation were tested by the films. These were conserva- tion Of quantity and conservation of weight. Overview of the Thesis.--The need, purposes, general design, definitions, assumptions and limitations of this study have been presented in this chapter. A description Of certain theoretical aspects of Piaget's develOpmental theory and studies that have replicated or extended this theory make up Chapter II. The population, treatment, and methods of evaluation used in this study are presented in Chapter III. Chapter IV contains the results and analyses Of the data. Conclusions Of this study and recommendations for further investigation are reported in Chapter V. CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE This chapter reviews the literature relative to the theoretical bases upon which the present study was built. A brief statement of Piaget's stage-related theory is presented along with a more detailed discussion of the concrete Operational phase and the concept Of conservation. The factors believed chiefly responsible for accelerating acquisition of higher stages are noted. Studies related to the theory conclude the chapter. Overview of the Theory.--General descriptions of Piaget's developmental theory abound in the literature. Works by Piaget,l Inhelder and Piaget,2 Hunt,3 Flavell,” 1Jean Piaget, "DevelOpment and Learning," in Piaget Rediscovered: A Report Of the Conference on Cpgnitive Sfudies and Curriculum Develppment, Part I, ed. by R. E. Ripple and V. N. Rockcastle (Ithica, New York: Cornell University, 1964), pp. 7-19. 2Inhelder and Piaget, op. cit. 3Hunt, op. cit. “John Flavell, The Developmental Psychology of Jean Piaget (Princeton, New Jersey: D. Van Nomzend Company, Inc., 1963). 18 l9 Adler,5 Boehm,6 Huttenlocher,7 and Stendler8 provide rather complete and detailed descriptions Of the various stages, sub-stages, periods, and phases that make up Piaget's develOpmental scheme. In order to discuss the Piagetian system, some agree- ment on terminology is necessary. In discussing Piaget's various develOpmental levels Huntg pointed out that Piaget and his collaborators, ". . . have been inconsistent with both terms and numberings. Each successive book has its own." Thus, the following table of terminology, based in the main on terminology suggested by Hunt,10 is provided to serve as a guide for subsequent discussion. The table appears on the following page. 5Marilynne Adler, "Some Educational Implications of the Theories of Jean Piaget and J. S. Bruner," Canadian Educational Research Digest, 4:291—305, December, 1964. 6Lenore Boehm, "Exploring Children's Thinking," Elementary School Journal, 61:363-373, April, 1961. 7Janellen Huttenlocher, "Children's Intellectual Development: Piaget's Position," Review of Educational Research, 35:117-118, April, 1965. 8Celia Stendler, "Aspects of Piaget's Theory that Have Implications for Teacher Education," Journal of Teacher Education, 16:329-335, September, 1965. 9Hunt, op. cit., p. 113. lOIbid., p. 114. 2O a TABLE l.--Piagetian terminology as suggested by Hunt. Periods Stages Phases A. Sensory motor 1. Exercising ready made period (birth schemata (birth to to two years) one month Old) 2. Primary circular re- actions (one month to four months Old) 3. Secondary circular reactions (four months to nine months old) 4. Coordination of second» ary schemata (nine months to twelve months Old) 5. Tertiary circular re- actions (twelve months to eighteen months Old) 6. Internalization Of sensory motor schemata (eighteen months to two years Old) B. Operational 1. Pre-Operational stage a. Symbolic or period (two (two years to seven pre-concept- years to years) ual phase twelve (two years years old) to four years Old) b. Intuitive phase (four years to seven years old) 2. Concrete Operational stage (seven years to twelve years old) C. Formal Opera- tional period (twelve years Old through adolescence) aJ. McVicker Hunt, Intelligence and Experience (New York: Ronald Press, 1961), pp. 113-115. 21 The Piagetian system consists Of three periods: the sensory-motor period, the Operational period, and the formal operational period. Each period is in turn sub- divided into stages or phases. For example, the sensory- motor period is divided into six stages during which intentions, means-ends differentiations, and interest in novelty develop. The Operational period is marked by two stages: the pre-Operational stage and the concrete Operational stage. The pre-Operational stage is divided into two phases: the preconceptual phase and the intuitive phase. During the Operational period symbols become Operational, language develops, the child continually extends, differ- entiates, and corrects his intuitive impressions of reality, and his central processes become more and more autonomous.ll The final period, formal Operations, is not sub- divided as such. The operational capabilities Of the adolescent are, however, carefully spelled out. During this period the individual is able to group and system— atize concrete Operations, classify and order in verbal prOpositions, and Operate with the sum total of possi- bilities, not merely the immediate, observable situation.l2 llIbid., p. 114. l2Ibid., p. 115. 22 Concrete Operational Stage.--This study was based on the premise that accelerating children's attainment of the concrete Operational stage is possible. According to Flavell:l3 concrete Operations can be defined as the time in life when a child acquires a well- structured and coherent cognitive framework, the child can describe the concrete, perceivable world of things or events. Piaget describes the concrete operational stage in this way: I call these concrete Operations because they Operate on subjects, and not yet on verbally expressed hypotheses. For example there are the Operations of classification, ordering, the con- struction of the idea of number, spatial and temporal Operations, and all the fundamental operations 3f elementary logic of classes and relations.1 A new and exciting intellectual workiis Opened for the child who has achieved concrete Operations. Attain- ment of this stage is based on an organization process. "What are organized are active, intellectual Operations: their organization into systems with definable structure is the 'sine qua non' for 'good cognition', i.e., cogni- tion Of greater genetic maturity."15 l3F1ave11, op. cit., pp. 164—165. luPiaget, op. cit., p. 9. 15Flavell, op. cit., p. 168. 23 To fully understand the significance of achieving the concrete operational stage one should compare the pre-Operational child with the concrete Operational child. The pre-operational child attempts to solve all new prob- lems by modes that have been successful in the past. Such modes frequently produce contradictions which the pre- Operational child ignores. He continues merely to inter- act with the problem situation with the result that his conceptual structures are in no way affected. Typical of this is the child's tendency to center his attention on one quantitative dimension of an Object, regardless of the physical deformations imposed on the Object. The child continues to base all of his judgments of quantity on just that one dimension. As a result, the pre-Operational child may judge the quantity Of water in two glasses by considering only the height of the water in each glass. He ignores the width completely. Physical appearances dominate the perceptions of the pre-Operational child. For example, clustering of a group of Objects causes the child to report an increase in the total mass of the objects, while the spreading out Of those same Objects generates a report of reduced total mass. At this stage, the child's thought is irreversible. A ball Of clay whose shape is changed cannot be returned to its original shape in the mind of the child. When 24 water is poured from a vessel of one shape into a vessel Of a different shape, the child is unable to consider the results of pouring the water back into the original con- tainer. The concrete Operational child, on the other hand, is able to perform a variety of mental operations. Flavell,l6 in dhunmsing the Piagetian system, describes a child at the concrete Operational stage as being able to: l. Compose and demxmxse classes in a hierarchy. 2. Combine elementary classes into supraordinate classes and decompose supraordinate into sub- ordinate classes. 3. Mentally destroy one classification system in order to impose a new and different system on the data. 4. Find the intersect or logical product of two or more classes. 5. Build up elements into a transitive, asymmetric series-~that is, serial order a set of elements. 6. Recognize commutative prOperties of sets of objects. 7. Build, from constituent elements, multiplication- of—relations matrices so that relations such as "shorter than and wider than" can be logically multiplied to equal "taller than and thinner l6F1ave11, op. cit., p. 191. 25 than." Multiplication of relations is the basic solution for virtually all conservation problems. In addition to Flavell's list of characteristics, Hunt17 1. states that the concrete Operational child can: Associate several Objects or Operations in a varied order, realizing that it makes no dif- ference which are combined first (a+b+c=c+a+b). Use the property Of identity to demonstrate that an Operation.is:nuIUfied by combining it with its Opposite (all boys except those who are boys equal noboby or 1 + (-l) = 0). Recognize the implications of a tautology. For example a child recognizes that repeating a message adds no new information to that message. Inhelder also provides a list Of intellectual charac- teristics deemed useful for describing a concrete opera- tional child. In addition to characteristics already enumerated, Inhelder18 states that a concrete operational child can: 1. Structure thought processes in such a way as to make clear the reversibility of operations. 2. Form a system of reciprocal relations which result in a realization that two or more people l7Hunt, op. cit., p. 201. 18 Inhelder, Op. cit., pp. 19-40. 26 looking at the same Object from different spatial locations may see different things. In summary, the concrete Operational child learns to distinguish the world from the self. Accidental occur— rences become differentiated from cause and effect happen— ings. The child learns to perform internalized mental Operations on what he observes. The child is no longer the slave of his own immediate perceptions. He is able to analyze the implications of what he directly perceives in terms of multiple classifications, reverse operations, serial ordering, multiple combinations, complex associa- tions, and identities. Conservation.-—The concept of conservation is basic to many of the tasks used by Piaget and others in deter- mining developmental growth at the concrete Operational stage. Piaget states: Every notion,whether it be scientific or merely a matter of common sense, presupposes a set of principles of conservation. . . . the introduction of the principle of inertia (conservation of rectilinear and uniform motion) made possible the development of modern physics, and the prin- ciple of conservation of matter made modern chem- istry possible. . . . In the field of perception the schema of the permanent Object presupposes the elaboration of what is no doubt the most primitive of all these principles of conservation. Obviously conservation, which is a necessary condition of all experience and all reasoning, by no means exhausts the representation of reality. . . . Our contention is merely that conservation is a necessary condition for all rational activity.l 19Jean Piaget, The Child's Concept Of Number (New York: Norton and Company, 1965), p. 3. 27 Flavell notes that, from the develOpmental point of view, conservation involves the: . . . cognition that properties (quantity, number, length, etc.) remain invariant (are con- served) in the face of certain transformations (displacing Objects or Object parts in space, sectioning an28bject into pieces, changing its shape, etc.). One of the most widely known and publicized Piagetian experiments concerns the conservation of liquid quantity. A child is shown two equal—size beakers, each containing the same amount of water. The child is invited to examine the beakers to insure that each contains the same amount of water. Then, before the child's eyes, the water from one of the beakers is poured into a beaker of different dimension, for example one that is taller and thinner than the original. A physical transformation is Observed by the child. After the water is poured, the child is asked whether the quantity of liquid in the new container is greater than, less than, or equal to the quantity of water in the original beaker. Piaget asserts that the child's answer is dependent on the developmental stage of that child. There are four answers possible and each is related to a major cognitive step leading ultimately to the evolution of conservation of quantity. 2OF1ave11, op. cit., p. 245. 28 Step I. The child attends only to the height of the liquid in the containers. Thus, when water is poured into a tall thin container and compared to the original beaker the child perceives the greater height to represent the greater quantity and answers that there is more water in the tall glass. Step II. The child attends only to the width of the liquid in the container. Consequently the child perceives the shorter-wider amount as being greater than the tall-thin amount and reports this back to the investigator. In either case, Step I or Step II, the child centers on one dimension and becomes deluded by the "attraction" of that one property. Step III. At this step in the ontogenetic process, the child's behavior becomes somewhat hazy. It is M apparent that a coordination between steps I and 11 takes place. That is, the child for the first time is able to center on both height and width. However, the child is not yet SOphisticated enough to recognize quantitative compensation of height and width. He therefore displays noticeable hesti— tation and conflict. Often he will tell the exper— imenter that he is not sure or is confused. 29 Step IV. At this step, the child realizes that the increase in height of the liquid in a container is entirely compensated for by a decrease in width. The child reports unequivocally that there is the same amount of water regardless of the shapes of the containers. There is: . . . a shift of conceptual focus from 'states' alone to the 'transformations' which lead from state to state. . . . The outcome of this fourth and final step is2 of course, a rigorous conserva- tion of quantity. For convenience these four steps are often reduced to three stages of conservation. Steps I and II are termed the non-conservation stage; step III is called the transition stage; and step IV is called the conservation stage. Piaget has devised experiments that demonstrate a number of conservation tasks: weight, volume, number, area, and quantity of matter. The Role of Conservation in Concrete Operations.—— A basic feature of the attainment of the concrete— Operational stage is the relationship between conservation and concrete operations. This relationship has been the source of much theoretical and experimental work. Flavell states: There is no question but that the formation of concrete operations is the richest chapter in Piaget's develOpmental story in the sense of sheer abundance of highly interesting empirical data. It does not seem likely that all this would or 21Flavell, op. cit., p. 246. 30 could have come about without the concept of con- servation formation and related unifiers. 23 states: "The ability to conserve is the key Carlson develOpment of the period of concrete intelligence." Despite the importance of conservation and its care- ful description and analysis by Piaget, Inhelder, and others, the relationship between conservation and concrete Operations appears somehow to have become obscured. The fault, in part, is in Piaget's literary style. His in- consistent use of terminology and his complex phraseology combine with the problems of translating French into English to create difficulties in theoretical interpreta- tion. Flavell, in his critique of Piaget's work states: There is a great deal of vagueness, imprecision, instability of concept definition, and other obsta- cles to communication in Piaget's theoretical writings. One often has to work hard to understand what Piaget is trying to sayA and he does not always succeed in this end. Some experimenters contend that a child must be able to conserve before that child can adequately function at the concrete-operational level. Saying this in another way, they believe that if one were able to induce conser- vation in a child, he would at the same time "propel" 22Ibid., p. 415. 23J. S. Carlson, "Developmental Psychology and Its Implications for Science Education," Science Education, 51:246-250, April, 1967. 2“Flavell, Op. cit., p. 427. 31 that child into the concrete Operational stage. It seems that this is what Sigel and Roeper mean when they state: . . this ability to conserve is a necessary intellectual Operation that enables a child to make the transition from the pre-Operational period to that of concrete operations. Brison26 follows a similar line of reasoning when he discusses the relationship between conservation and the operations of reversibility and decentration. One is led to believe that conservation is the precursor of concrete operations rather than the child's way of ex— pressing his understanding Of reversibility and decen— 27 and Brison28 have taken a similar tration. Bruner theoretical position. However, others interpret Piaget's position to be that operational thought is the consequence of modification of mental structures and results 13 con- servation, not from conservation. 25Irving Sigel and Annamarie Roeper, "The Acquisi- tion of Conservation: A Theoretical and Empirical Analysis," p. l. (Mimeographed.) 26David Brison, "Acceleration of Conservation of Substance," The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 109:311— 322, 1966. 27Jerome Bruner, "The Course of Cognitive Growth," American Journal of Psychology, 19:1-16, 1961. 28David Brison, "Acquisition Of Conservation of Substance in a Group Situation," Dissertation Abstracts, 26:2583, No. 5, 1966. 32 Duckworth29 points out that in Piaget's research, when a child asserts that liquid is conserved, this is taken as an indication Of a certain structure of mental operations. The child recognizes the difference between "appearance and reality" and is able to indicate this through "reversibility of thought and a capacity for logical multiplication."30 Logical Operations make it possible for a child to justify conservation of quantity in spite of variations in appearance. Conservation should therefore be considered a diagnostic tool for measuring developmental growth, not a pole for vaulting the child to a higher level of intellectual development. Acceleration of Concrete Operations.—-One of the con- troversial tOpics relative to the concept of concrete operations concerns whether or not acquisition of such operations can be accelerated. Some researchers indicate that they may be. Others say that they cannot be acceler- ated. Piaget's reaction is, "Oh you Americans, you are in a rush always."31 29Eleanor Duckworth,"Piaget Rediscovered," in Piaget Rediscovered: A Report of the Conference on Cognitive Studies and Curriculum Develppment, Part I, R. E. Ripple and V. Rockcastle, editors (Ithica: Cornell University, 1964), pp. 1-5. 30Hunt, op. cit., p. 207. 31Lydia Muller-Willis, "Learning Theories of Piaget and Mathematics Instruction," in Improving Mathematics Education for Elementary School Teachers, edited by W. Robertlknnmon (East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University, 1960), Section II, p. 41. 33 Piaget believes that the child must be biologically ready to move to a more advanced develOpmental stage. Educational efforts are limited by the child's develop- mental sequence. However, in a 1964 speech at Cornell University be clarified his position somewhat by stating that the acceleration of stages such as concrete Opera- tions . is possible if you base the more complex structures on simpler structures, that is when there is a natural relationship and develOpment of structures and not simply an external rein— forcement.3 This last statement has produced a general feeling among psychologists and educators that acceleration of developmental stages can be accomplished if the factors responsible for the growth of simple structures can be described. Piaget describes the factors that he believes affect attainment Of concrete Operations in the following way: It seems to me there are four main factors; first of all, maturation, in the sense of Gesell, since this develOpment is a continuation of embryogenesis; second the role of experience of the effects of the physical environment on the structures of intelligence; third, social trans- mission in the broad sense (linguistic trans- mission, education, etc.); and fourth, a factor which is too Often neglected but one which seems to me fundamental and even the principal factog. I shall call this the factor of equilibration. 3 32Piaget, op. cit., p. 17. 331bid., p. 10. 34 Piaget3u considers maturation to be a ripening of neural structures with age. Although maturation plays an indispensible role, he believes it is insufficient in itself for explaining achievement of concrete Opera- tions. The chronological age at which this stage is reached varies by as much as four years in different cultures. Studies indicate that children in urban centers such as Geneva, Montreal, and Teheran tend to attain concrete Operations at approximately the same age. Studies involving rural Iranian populations indicate a two year lag in reaching the Operational stage. Children in Martinique are four years behind the urban groups as measured by the Piagetian experiments. Therefore, neural maturation cannot alone eXplain develOpmental growth. Piaget35 believes that experience, too, is neces- sary, but insufficient for bringing about concrete Opera- tional thought. Concepts appear at the onset of this phase that cannot be eXplained by experience. The child is able to conserve the quantity Of matter before he can conserve the weight Of that same matter. Yet conservation of quantity cannot be directly measured by the child while conservation Of weight can. It is difficult to explain how experience can enable an abstract concept like quantity to become a part of a child's intellectual 3uIbid. 351bid., p. 11. 35 structure before a more concrete concept like weight does. A third factor, social transmission, which can be interpreted to mean linguistic or educational trans- mission is also deemed insufficient tO promote signif- icant developmental growth by itself. This is because the child can receive information by means of language or education from an adult only if he has reached a point in his intellectual develOpment where he can assim- ilate and accommodate to that information. Equilibration, the fourth factor, is for Piaget the critical one. When a child is confronted with a cognitive conflict and he actively operates to compensate for the conflict, logical structures develop. Compensa- tion is achieved through the Operations of reversibility, associativity, additive composition, identity, and affirm- ation of equivalence among members of a class.36 From a theoretical point of view there appears ample reason to believe that: 1. Conservation of quantity is indicative of achievement of concrete Operations. 2. Earlier acquisition of concrete Operations is signifi- cant tO a child's educational progress. 37 3. Acceleration of concrete operations is possible. 36Ibid., p. 14. 37Millie Almy, Edward Chittendon and Paula Miller, Young Children's Thinking: Studies of Some Asppcts of Piaget's Theory (New York: Teacher's College Press, 1966), p. 131. 36 EXperimental confirmation of Piaget's theory and a description of studies that demonstrate factors that accelerate acquisition of concrete Operations will make up the remainder of this chapter. .Studies Concerned with the Basic Theory.--The liter— ature reviewed reveals that studies replicating Piaget's stage theory have confirmed, almost without exception, the existence of develOpmental stages and their invariant order of achievement. A number of studies have, however, disagreed with Piaget on the age at which particular stages appear. Peel38 conducted four studies in Great Britain each involving from thirty-two to sixty children. These chil— dren were presented with Piagetian.twfl$ related to the child's perceptions and logical thinking. The validity of Piaget's schemata was assessed by comparing development of children's thinking and perception with the criteria of chronological and mental age. In general, Piaget's conclu- sions about order of stage develOpment were substantiated in these studies. Dodwell39 conducted a study involving 250 kinder— garten pupils. Three stages in the development of number 38E. A. Peel, "Experimental Examination of Some of Piaget's Schemata Concerning Children's Perceptions and Thinking and a Discussion of Their Educational Significance," British Journal of Educational Psychology, 29:89—103, June, 1959. 39F. C. Dodwell, "Children's Understanding of Number and Related Concepts," Canadian Journal of Psychology, 14: 37 were identified. These stages were global, intuitive, and concrete operational. It may be noted that Dodwell's evidence corroberated Piaget's stage theory. Hood“O working with 126 normal children, age four years, nine months to eight years, seven months and forty subnormal mental—status children and adults, age ten years, three months to forty-one years showed that the sequence of develOpment was the same for all of the chil- dren, but that retarded children and subnormal adults required a longer time to reach the higher stages of in- tellectual develOpment. Goodnowul studied Hong Kong children and Price- WilliamsM2 used illiterate bush West African children as subjects. Both were able to replicate Piaget's findings on stage order. However, questions regarding relative age of acquisition of certain stages were raised. Woodward”3 conducted a series of experiments in which he was able to validate the six stages Of the “OH. B. Hood, "An Experimental Study of Piaget's Theory Of Development of Number in Children," British Journal of Psychology, 53:273-286, 1962. ulJacqueline Goodnow, "A Test of Milieu Effects with Some of Piaget's Tasks," Psychological Monographs, Vol. 76, NO. 36, 1962. “2D. R. Price—Williams, "A Study Concerning Concepts Of Conservation of Quantities Among Primitive Children," Acta Psychologica, 18:297-305, 1961. “3M. Woodward, "The Behavior of Idiots Interpreted by Piaget's Theory of Sensory-Motor Development," British Journal of Educational Psychology, 29:60—71, 1959. 38 sensory-motor period.‘ Lovell and SlaterM worked with mental retardates and showed the validity of the develop- 45 mental stages described by Piaget. Wohlwill carried out scalogram analyses and showed that Piaget's stages do, in fact, form a genuine developmental progression. An explan- ation of the meaning and procedures used in scalogram analyses is presented by FlavellL16 in his text. In each of these studies Piaget's original ordering of stages was confirmed. The literature revealed only one study that failed to confirm Piaget's basic ordering of stages. That was ”7 done in the mid-1950's. Both Flavell“8 a study by Estes and DodwellU9 raised questions about the imprecision of the descriptions of techniques used in the study and, in general, cast serious doubts on the results of this study. “MK. Lovell and A. Slater, "The Growth of the Concept of Time: A Comparative Study," Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 1:179—190, 1960. uSJoachim Wohlwill, "A Study of the Development of the Number Concept by Scalogram Analysis," The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 97:345-377, 1960. 46 Flavell, Op. cit., p. 364. “7B. W. Estes, "Some Mathematical and Logical Concepts in Children," The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 88:219-222, 1956. u8Flavell, Op. cit., p. 383. ”9Dodwe11, loc.cit. 39 Studies Concerned with Concrete Operations and Con- servation.-—A large part of the research related to Piagetian theory has dealt with concrete operations, and more specifically, with the concept of develOping conser- vation. Experiments pertinent to the present study involve the following areas: (1) confirming the validity of conservation as a concept; (2) affirming the three stages, non—conservation, transition, and conservation, in the development of conservation; and (3) elucidating and testing factors believed significant for inducing the Operational stage. Studies Confirming the Validitypof Conservation.—- Using 175 American children in kindergarten through sixth grade Elkind50 conducted a series of experiments devoted to a systematic replication of Piaget's findings on con- servation of quantity, weight, and volume. His results showed that the number of conservation responses varied with age level and type of task. The results were "in close agreement with Piaget's findings of a regular, age related order in the discoveries of mass, weight, and volume."51 50David Elkind, "Children's Discovery of the Con— servation Of Mass, Weight, and Volume: Piaget Replication Study II," The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 98:219-227, 1961. 511616., p. 219. 4O 52,53,54 tested British children Lovell and Ogilvie along the lines initiated by Piaget. Using standardized presentations, these investigators tested 322 children on conservation of quantity tasks; 364 children on conserva- tion of weight tasks; and 191 children on conservation of volume tasks. They were able to confirm Piaget's findings on conservation of quantity, weight, and volume. Uzgiris55 studied the influence of a variety of test materials on the attainment of conservation. A scalogram analysis Of 120 grade school children, twenty from each of the first six grades, indicated that conserva- tion was achieved in the order (1) quantity, (2) weight, and (3) volume on each of the materials involved. 56 Kooistra used ninety-six children aged four through seven to investigate the effects of five variables: age, sex, content, type of conservation, and form of 52K. Lovell and E. Ogilvie, "A Study of the Conser- vation of Substance in the Junior School Child," The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 30:109-118, 1960. 53K. Lovell and E. Ogilvie, "A Study of the Conser- vation of Weight in the Junior School Child," The British Journal of Educational Psychology, 31:138-144, 1961. 5LIK. Lovell and E. Ogilvie, "The Growth of the Con- cept of Volume in Junior School Children," The Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 2:118-126, 1961. 55Ina Uzgiris, "Situational Generality of Conserva- tion," Child Development, 35:831-841, 1964. 56William Kooistra, "Developmental Trends in the Attainment Of Conservation, Transitivity, and Relativism 41 conservation of quantity on the attainment of conservation. All the subjects were of superior intelligence, 135 and above. It was found that age, type of conservation, and form of conservation of quantity were significant to attainment Of this concept. These results were felt to be in close agreement with Piaget's theory. Smedslund57 replicated the work of Piaget on conser- vation of quantity and weight and verified the sequence of acquisition of conservation. He found somewhat earlier transition ages in his group of children than had Piaget. 58 McRoy studied the attainment of conservation of quantity, weight, and volume. As in other studies, volume appeared to be the last of the conservation abilities the child acquired. The invariant order of attainment of quantity and weight could not be verified in this study. It should be noted that this last finding was in direct contrast not only to Piaget's theory but to the in the Thinking of Children: A Replication and Extension of Piaget's Ontogenetic Formulations," Dissertations in Cognitive Processes--Abstract (Detroit: Wayne State University, 1964). 57Jan Smedslund, "The Acquisition of Conservation of Substance and Weight in Children," Scandanavian Journal of Psychology, 2:71-84, 1961. 58James McRoy, "A Study of the Development of the Concept of Quantity by Scalogram Analysis," Dissertation Abstracts, 28:123l-B, NO. 3, 1967. 42 d’59 6O replication studies of Elkin Lovell and Ogilvie, and Smedslund.61 Affirmation of the Three Stages of Conservation.-- The three stages of conservation described by Piaget were non-conservation, transition, and conservation. A care- ful qualitative and quantitative study of these stages was made by Lovell and Ogilvie.62. They used 322 boys and girls in a junior school in a town in Northern England. They systematically traced the development of the concept of invariance of substance (quantity). The procedure used was similar to that develOped by Piaget. Two equal size balls of plasticine were shown to each child. One ball was then deformed by rolling it into a sausage shape as the child looked on. The child was then asked about the amount of plasticine in the ball as compared to the sausage. According to Lovell and Ogilvie, the results of this experiment closely agreed with Piaget's findings: Strong evidence has been produced in support of the three stages proposed by Piaget, and in our view, he was justified in trying to trace the development of the concept of invariance Of substance. But the stages are not clear gut; the borders between them are zones not lines. 3 59Elkind, loc. cit. 60Lovell and Ogilvie, loc. cit. 61 . Smedslund, loc. c1t. 62 Lovell and Ogilvie, "A Study of the Conservation of Substance . . . ," Op. cit. 63Ibid. 43 Elkind's6u replication study of conservation of quantity, mass, and volume produced affirmative evidence concerning the stages described by Piaget. Elkind was able to discern patterns in children's reasoning that helped him in placing a child at a particular stage Of conservation development. For example, children who were non-conservers reported two kinds of explanations for their answers. These were: (1) Romancing, it's more because "My Uncle said so"; and (2) Perceptual, "It's more because it's longer, thinner, wider, thicker." Children who were conservers also gave two types Of answers: (1) Specific, ”That hot dog is longer but thinner so the same"; and (2) General, "NO matter what shape you make it into it won't change the amount." Smedslund65 affirmed the three stages in the devel- opment of conservation in a study involving five to seven year Old sons and daughters of delegates to the interna- tional committees and organizations in Geneva, Switzer- land. He was able to identify the three stages and except for earlier age of acquisition Of these stages found the results in close qualitative agreement with those of Piaget. 6uElkind, op. cit., pp. 224—226. 65Smedslund, loc. cit. 44 66 Almy, Chittendon, and Miller conducted a cross- sectional and longitudinal study designed primarily to validate the development of the child's understanding of the principle of conservation. Two New York City elemen- tary schools, one from a middle-class neighborhood, and the other from a lower—class neighborhood were selected for this study. For the longitudinal study, forty-one kindergarten children were selected at random from the middle—class school and twenty-four kindergarten children were selected from the lower—class school. They were tested at six month intervals for two years for conserva- tion ability on three Piagetian tasks. Both the stages and the order of conservation development suggested by Piaget were affirmed by this part of the study. For the cross-sectional study, 245 children were selected from_ kindergarten through second grade, and from middle-class schools. These children were tested to determine the extent of their understanding of conservation. Trends in both the middle-class and lower-class schools conform to Piaget's theory. The researchers had expected slower progress in the low sociO-economic school, and this was confirmed in the study. Studies Concerned with Factors Related to Stage Acquisition.--Piaget67 suggested that four factors affect 66Almy, Chittendon, and Miller, Op. cit., pp. 65—110. 67Piaget, "Development and Learning," op. cit. 45 the acquisition of concrete operations. These were: maturation, experience, social transmission, and self- regulation. From an experimental point of view, maturation and self—regulation have received relatively little attention. By contrast the experience factor has received great attention from researchers trying to induce higher levels of developmental growth. This factor is readily manipu- lated and measurements in terms of acquisition of higher levels of thinking can be obtained. Churchill68 attempted to measure the affects of various experiences on developmental growth. Matched groups of children served as subjects. The treatment group was pre-tested, given experience with seriation, matching, ordering, comparing, grouping, and invariance of numerical relations. They were then post—tested using Piagetian—type tasks. The control group was given a pre—test and the post-test only. The treatment group showed highly significant improvement over the control group in the number Of questions answered correctly at the operational level. V 68Eileen Churchill, "The Number Concepts Of the Young Child: Part 2," Researches and Studies, Leeds University, 18:28-46, 1958. 46 69 Wallach, Wall, and Anderson measured conservation of number in 56 six and seven year Old children exposed to various kinds of experiences. One group Of children was given experience in ignoring irrelevant cues and ex— perience with reversibility. Another group was exposed to a procedure Of adding or taking away quantities. Children who both recognized reversibility and ignored irrelevant cues showed a higher rate of conservation than the other children in this study. 70 Sigel and Roeper noting the failure of studies that attempted to induce conservation directly, selected a number of mental Operations believed crucial for the acquisition of concrete Operations and conservation. They provided a group of five mentally superior children with experiences involving the mental Operations of multiple classification, multiple relationality, atomism, reversibility, and seriation. These children were pre- tested and post—tested for conservation of quantity, weight, and volume. The authors reported: Of the training group, four out Of the five children were retested and each one of these children showed an increase in the ability to handle conservation tasks after the training period. 69Lise Wallach, Jack Wall, and Lorna Anderson, "Number Conservation: The Roles of Reversibility, Addi- tion, Subtraction, and Misleading Perceptual Clues," Child Development, 38:425—442, 1967. 70 Sigel and Roeper, op. cit., p. 5. 71Ibid., p. 30. 47 A second small group of intellectually superior children was given only the pre- and post-test. Only one child showed any change in the ability to handle conservation. As a result Sigel and Roeper concluded: The results of the explorations reported here support the theoretical position that the training of the children in the prerequisites of particular stages enables the acquisition of the subsequent stage. Thus, the cognitive structure comes into being by virtue of these pre-training experiences. This indicates the interdependence between the stage and its precursor as the Piagetian theory would hold. If this is true, it suggests that the rate Of development can be modified and/or accelerated by providing opportunities for the child to acquire the precursors. 73 Rosenbloom attempted to accelerate children's achievement of concrete operations in a school setting. Using kindergarten children, he attempted to provide them with experiences that would enable them to visual- ize the result of inverse Operations. Materials used for this study came from one of the current elementary science projects, The Minnesota Mathematics and Science Teaching Project (Minnemast). It was found that, "Chil— dren who had studied the Minnemast materials were significantly better than the control group of —4 72Ibid., p. 29. 73Paul Rosenbloom, "Implications of Piaget for Mathematics Curriculum," in Improving Mathematics Edu- cation for Elementary_School Teachers, by W. Robert Houston, editor (East Lansing, Michigan: Michigan State University, 1967), Section II, pp. 44-49. 48 kindergarteners who had studied in conventional pro— grams. ."74 Over twice as many children in Minne- mast, as compared with conventional programs, had attained conservation concepts by the end of kindergar- ten. 75 conducted a three year Almy and Dimitrovsky longitudinal study on the affect of systematically designed science and mathematics eXperiences on develOp— mental growth. The experiences Of some of the children were carefully controlled by the dictates of the science and mathematics program used. The experiences of the others was less systematized. All of the children were tested for conservation ability in both the first and the second grades. Although analysis of all the data was incomplete as of March 1, 1968, some general trends were detected by the investigators. More first graders in the study who had had experiences in classifying and ordering as part of the systematized science and mathematics pro- gram conserved than the other first graders in the study. By the end of the second grade, however, there were no apparent differences in conservation ability between the two groups of children. The children in the less system- atized science and mathematics program had taken 7L‘Ibid., p. 48. 75Millie Almy and Lilly Dimitrovsky, "Science and Mathematics Instruction in Kindergarten and First Grade: Outcomes in Logical Thinking in Second Grade" (New York: Teacher's College, 1968), p. 7. (Mimeographed.) 49 approximately one year longer to reach the concrete Oper- ational stage than the children who had had the more highly structured program. On the basis of this prelim- inary information it appeared that systematic experiences in classifying and ordering materials served to acceler- ate acquisition Of concrete Operations. 76 Coxford tested a group of sixty children at the University of Michigan Laboratory School for conservation ability. Non—conservers and children in transition were given experiences in serial ordering, serial correspondence, and ordinal correspondence. It was hOped that children could advance at least one stage as a result of these ex- periences. It was found that children who were in the transition stage and were given the requisite experiences made significant gains over transition stage children who were not given any of these experiences. There were no differences between non-conservers who were given practice in seriation and ordination and non-conservers who were given no practice. This study appears to reinforce Piaget's contention that both maturation and experience are significant factors in accelerating or inducing more advanced stages of thinking. 76Arthur Coxford, "Effects of Instruction on the Stage Placement of Children in Piaget's Seriation Exper— iments," Arithmetic Teacher, 11:4-9, January, 1964. 50 Muktarian77 used five and six year olds to show that experiences focused on developing an understanding of logical permanence enabled children to conserve quantity. 78 Bruner reported that children needed experience in labeling identity in order to accurately judge equiv- alence. An experiment was conducted in which a quantity of water was moved from one "lake" to another "lake" of different spatial configuration. Six out of ten non- conservers reported that after the water was transfered to the second "lake" it was not the same water that had been in the first "lake." On the other hand, conservers identified the water in both "lakes" as being the same water and consequently the same amount. Experiences designed to point out the "sameness" of objects that undergo spatial or figural reorientations proved success- ful in inducing conservation. Children who were not helped by Bruner's identity experiences were found, six out of seven times, to be focusing on a single perceptual feature. He pointed out: If they could be shielded from a quick, mis- leading ikonic rendering of the situation- shielded in a fashion that would permit them to represent the situation in language before 77Herbert Muktarian, "A Study of the Development of Conservation of Quantity," Dissertation Abstracts, 27: 2508—2509, No. 7—B, 1967. 78Bruner, "On the Conservation of Liquids," Op. cit., pp. 168-182. 51 they see it-—perhaps the language would serve as a guide for organizing their perceptions in a new way. Using a series of beakers of varying sizes, four to seven year old children were given experience in estim— ating the height of a column of water poured from one beaker to another behind a screen, and in front of the screen. They were asked to verbalize what was happening as well. The screening procedure helped the older chil- dren to separate perceptual evidence from judgments. The younger children continued to judge quantity on the basis of imagined perceptual equality. The significant feature of Bruner's work, from the standpoint of the present study, is the fact that experi- ences were delineated that resulted in stage induction. In the sampling used by Bruner and his associates, fifty- five per cent of the six and seven year olds conserved on the pre—test. After the treatments described above, over ninety per cent Of the six and seven year olds conserved.80 It should be noted that some degree of success in accelerating stage acquisition has been claimed in each of the preceding investigations. Although Piaget has stated that experience alone is insufficient to promote accelerated developmental growth, the evidence seems to indicate that experiences involving such skills and 79161d., p. 193. 52 understandings as ordering, matching, grouping, recog— nizing the invariance of numerical relations, ignoring irrelevant cues, decentering, visualizing results of inverse Operations, reversibility, multiple classifica- tion, multiple relationality, and atomism do in some way accelerate the rate of intellectual develOpment. Piaget's fourth, and last, factor affecting the acquisition of develOpmental stages was social trans- mission. Piaget considered social transmission to be linguistic or educational transmission wherein the child received valuable information as a result of adult-directed instruction. It seemed that this factor was very closely related to the experience factor. The chief difference was that Piaget considered experience to involve direct confrontation with and manipulation of an object by the learner. Social transmission implied that the learner was in a more passive state and received knowledge by means of language from an adult or a peer. A number of studies have been designed ostensibly to investigate the affects of social transmission on devel- opmental growth. Mermelstein and Shulman81 studied the affects of formal schooling on the performance of six and nine year 81Egon Mermelstein and Lee Shulman, "Lack of Formal Schooling and the Acquisition of Conservation," Child Development, 38:39-52, March, 1967. 53 old children on Piagetian conservation tasks. They also investigated the affects of language on a child's ability to conserve. Sixty children from Prince Edward County, Virginia, an area that had been without public schools for four years prior to the investigation, were involved in this study. In addition, a matched group of sixty six and nine year Old children from a similar community that had had school regularly were studied. It was found that on Piagetian conservation tasks no differences existed between six year olds in Prince Edward County and six year olds from the community which had had regular schooling. It was further found that on verbal and non- verbal tasks no differences existed between Prince Edward County nine year olds and nine year olds from the other community. Apparently a lack of formal schooling had had no affect on a child's ability to conserve. In the older groupcn?children, language did not seem to be a factor in determining conservation ability. These findings tend to indicate that stage development takes place despite an interruption in social transmission. Mermelstein and Meyer82 studied the effectiveness of a number of conservation training techniques to ascer— tain their effect on certain pOpulations. Using 316 three to six year Old children, the investigators 82Egon Mermelstein and Edwina Meyer, "Conservation Training Techniques and Their Effects on Different POpu- 1ations" (address at Convention of American Educational Research Association, February 8, 1968). 54 employed cognitive conflict, language activation, verbal rule instruction, and multiple classification training techniques to induce the concept of conservation of quan— tity. It was found that conservation was not induced by any of the training procedures in any Of the pOpulations. 83 Smedslund, carried out a series of investigations Of children's acquisition Of conservation of quantity and weight. He used five to seven year old Norwegian children as subjects. The first experiment involved external reinforcement methods. One group of sixteen children was allowed to observe empirical conservation of weight on a balance. A second group of sixteen children practiced on addition and subtraction of quantities of material on a scale. A third group of sixteen children served as a con- trol. Smedslund found no differences in conservation ac- quisition among the three groups. External reinforcement techniques had not induced stage development. Another experiment by Smedslund involved practice in conflict situations without external reinforcement. 83Jan Smedslund, "The Acquisition of Conservation of Substance and Weight in Children I," Scandanavian Journal of Ppychology, 2:11—20, 1961; Jan Smedslund, "The Acquisition of Conservation of Substance and Weight in Children II," Scandanavian Journal of Psychology, 2:71-84, 1961; Jan Smedslund, "The Acquisition of Conservation of Substance and Weight in Children III," Scandanavian Journal of Psychology, 2:85-87, 1961; Jan Smedslund, "The Acquisition of Conservation of Substance and Weight in Children IV," Scandanavian Journal of Ppychology, 2:153— 155, 1961; Jan Smedslund, "The Acquisition of Conservation of Substance and Weight in Children V," Scandanavian Journal of Psychology, 2:156-160, 1961; Jan Smedslund, "The Acquisition of Conservation of Substance and Weight in Children VI," Scandanavian Journal of Psychology, 2:203- 210, 1961. 55 Thirteen children, ages five and six, were given practice sessions in which simultaneous deformations of clay and surreptitious addition or subtraction of some clay material resulted in a change in quantity different from what was expected by the child. Four out of the thirteen children changed from no trace of conservation in a pre- test to several correct answers after three training sessions. The final experiment in this series involved practice on continuous and discontinuous materials in problem situations without external reinforcement. A total of 154 children, ages five to seven, were given practice with adding and subtracting material from both continuous and discontinuous objects. The number of children who acquired conservation Of quantity was largest after practice with the discontinuous objects. Although Smedslund's investigations were closely related to the experience factor, their basic objectives were oriented toward educational transmission. These experiments indicated that educational experiences geared toward the presentation of cognitive incongruities affected induction of conservation. 85 Studies by Gruen814 and Stuck were conducted in a manner quite similar to that used by Smedslund. Both 8“Gerald Gruen, "Experiences Effecting the Develop- ment of Number Conservation in Children," Dissertation Abstracts, 25:6751, NO. 11, 1965. 85Gary Stuck, "A Comparison of the Effect of Equil- ibration Theory and S-R Theory-Based Training on Acquisi- tion of Permanence of Conservation of Weight," Dissertation Abstracts, 27:2899-A, NO. 9, 1967. 56 investigators were concerned with educational methods that might be successful in accelerating stage develOp- ment. Both concentrated on cognitive incongruities and reinforcement techniques. Only Gruen found cognitive incongruity methods to produce greater acceleration. On the whole Piaget's social transmission factor has exper- ienced neither the breadth of coverage nor the success in stage induction that the experience factor has. Summary.--To summarize the review of literature, the following statements relative to Piaget's basic theory are considered both accurate and appropriate by the writer. First, Piaget and others have developed a stage-related theory that describes a child's intellectual growth from birth to age fifteen. Second, according to this theory, the onset of concrete cperathxn is a very significant occurrence in the intellectual development Of young chil- dren. Third, achievement of conservation is a useful indicator of a child's developmental growth. The child who conserves is considered to Operate at the concrete Operational stage. Both the acquisition of the various skills and the stages of conservation development as described by Piaget and his co—workers have been con- firmed. Fourth, induction Of concrete Operations is possible if conditions that enable basic intellectual structures to develOp into necessary complex structures are established. The factors that affect the conditions have been delineated by Piaget and others. 57 In addition to statements of basic theory, research relevant to each of the theoretical statements was pre— sented in this chapter. Studies by Peel (38), Dodwell (39), Hood (40) Goodnow (41), Price—Williams (42), Wood- ward (43), Lovell and Slater (44), and Wohlwill (45) demonstrated the validity of Piaget's stage-related theory. Both the descriptions and the order of stages were shown to be efficacious by these studies. Investigations by Lovell and Ogilvie (52, 53, 54), Uzgiris (55), Kooistra (56), and Smedslund (57) confirmed the validity and order of acquisition of conservation of quantity, weight, and volume. Only the study by McRoy (58) cast any doubt on the order of acquisition Of these concepts. Three stages in the achievement Of conservation were confirmed in the studies by Lovell and Ogilvie (62), Elkind (50), Smedslund (57), and Almy (66). Studies by Churchill (68), Wallach (69), Sigel and Roeper (25), Rosenbloom (73), Almy and Dimitrovsky (75), Coxford (76), Muktarian (77), and Bruner (78) showed that certain experiences caused accel- erated achievement of concrete Operations as measured by a child's ability to conserve quantity. On the basis of the studies reviewed it appeared that the experience factor has been more instrumental in producing accelerated developmental growth than Piaget believed possible. While the evidence has not been incon- travertible, there has accumulated over the past ten 58 years sufficient quantities of evidence to warrant con- tinued investigation into the area of acceleration of concrete Operations. CHAPTER III IMPLEMENTATION OF THE STUDY This chapter describes the organizational plan of the study, the methods and materials used with each group of pupils, the evaluative instruments, and the methods of collecting data. A summary of the hypotheses tested and models used in analyzing the data collected in the study are also included. Background of the Study.--During the summer of 1967, the superintendent of schools in Okemos, Michigan, con- tacted personnel of the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center at Michigan State University concerning the possi— bility of using one of the newer science programs in an Okemos School. Dr. Glenn Berkheimer, coordinator Of the Michigan State University Trial Center for SCIS, invited the writer to design a study that would involve the use Of SCIS methods and materials in the Okemos School Dis- trict. As a result of the request, the present study was designed by the writer. A meeting was held during the first week of Septem- ber, 1967, with administrative personnel of the Okemos Public School System. At this meeting the writer pointed out the possibility and the value of conducting research 59 60 related to the intellectual development of young children resulting from certain science experiences. It was pro- posed that the school district purchase and use SCIS materials in half of the first grade classes in one elemen- tary school in Okemos and the rest of the first grade pupils in that school have the usual science program. Developmental growth of all of the first grade children in that school would be measured using a series of Piagetian conservation tasks as evaluative criteria. The prOposal was found to be acceptable and a subsequent meeting was held at which the prOposal was presented to the principal of the Cornell School, Okemos, Michigan. He found the study acceptable and arranged a meeting between the writer and the four first grade teachers at the Cornell School. The purpose of the meeting was to present the study for the teachers' consideration and to determine their will- ingness to actively participate in the study. The meeting with the teachers was held in mid—September at the Cornell School. All four teachers agreed to participate. The study was initiated at the Cornell School on January 3, 1968. General Design of the Study.--This study was carried out in three first grade classes and one first—second grade transition class in the Cornell School, Okemos, Michigan. A total Of eighty-seven children were enrolled in these four classes when the study began,. The study 61 was initiated on January 3, 1968 and was terminated on May 6, 1968, a total of eighteen weeks. The Community.——Okemos is a small suburban community located about ten miles east of Lansing, Michigan. Fami- lies Of private businessmen, company executives, and college faculty members make up the bulk of Okemos' inhab- itants. At present the Okemos School District is made up of three elementary schools—-Edgewood, Wardcliff, and Cornell Schools, one junior high school, and one senior high school. Cornell School, which is located at the eastern boundary of Okemos, draws about one—fourth of its student pOpulation from surrounding rural areas, and the remainder of its students from the more affluent local neighborhoods. The Children.-—The ages of the children participating in this study on January 1, 1968 ranged from six years one month to eight years eleven months with an average age of six years ten months. Approximately fifty per cent of these children came from families in which the average annual income exceeded fifteen thousand dollars. About one-fourth of the fathers of these children had earned a Master's Degree, a Doctor of PhiloSOphy Degree, or a Medical Degree. Sixty per cent of the fathers and approx- imately fifty per cent of the mothers had earned Bachelor's Degrees. 62 The Classes.—-The children in this study were ran- domly assigned to one of four classes for the purpose of studyflugscience. The names of the forty—seven boys in this group were placed in a hat, withdrawn one at a time and assigned alternately to one of the four classes. The forty girls were randomly assigned in a similar manner. Thus each of the classes consisted of ten girls and either eleven or twelve boys. Two of the classes had been arbitrarily designated as the experimental group by the investigator and two classes as the control group prior to the random assignment Of pupils. The experimental group studied science by means Of the methods and materials con- 1 tained in an SCIS unit entitled Material Objects. The control group studied science by means of the usual first grade science program. The text used for the control group was Science is Fun.2 Table 2,on page 63, is a summary Of the make-up of the four science classes involved in this study. The Teachers.--After all of the children were ran— domly assigned to the four science classes, the principal of Cornell School arbitrarily assigned each of the four lMaterial Objects (Boston: D. C. Heath and Company, 1966). 2Wilbur Beauchamp, Science is Fun (Chicago: Scott Foresman and Company, 1961). 63 TABLE 2.--Composition of the four first grade science classes in the Cornell School. Number of Pupils General Design Age Range Pre-test Treatment Post-test Group Boys Girls A 12 10 6-4 to Yes SCIS Yes 8-11 B 12 10 6-4 to Yes SCIS Yes 8-9 C l2 10 6—2 to Yes Scott Yes 8-1 Foresman D 11 10 6-1 to Yes Scott Yes 8-11 Foresman teachers to one of the classes. The randomization Of stu- dents and assignment Of teachers was completed before December 1, 1967. On December 7, 1967 the investigator met with the four teachers involved in the study for the purpose of outlining the general procedures for the study. At this meeting all of the teachers were oriented to the following aspects of the investigation: 1. A brief description of the design; reasons for random— izing students; methods of pre-test, post-test Obser- vations, and general procedures for instruction, teacher preparation and feedback. 2. Availability of materials, equipment and technical assistance for the control group teachers. 3. Establishment of separate meeting dates for experi— mental and control group teachers to discuss Specific 64 aSpects of each program. Understanding that no communication between control and experimental group teachers take place concern- ing their respective programs. At a meeting on December 16, 1967 with the two exper— imental group teachers, the investigator discussed the following topics: 1. Objectives of science in the elementary school as envisioned by the investigator. Specific details about the SCIS program including historical development, goals, types of material available, specific lessons, difficulties encountered by other teachers, need for evaluation, text to be used, and availability of technical assistance. At a meeting with the two control group teachers on December 18, 1967, the following topics were discussed: 1. 2. Objectives of science in the elementary school. Specific information relevant to the science program to be conducted, materials and equipment available through the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center at Michigan State University, choice of first units to be taught, and agreement by both teachers to cover the same topics, but to maintain autonomy as to the style of presentation. Methods and Materials.--In order to provide equal time for science instruction in both the experimental and 65 control groups, all science lessons were conducted for thirty minutes per day and three days per week. The children moved from their usual classroom to their science classroom in a manner similar to that in a departmentalized junior high school. After the science period was completed the children returned to their regular classrooms. Experimental Group.--The lessons and related experi- ences presented to the experimental group were carefully delineated in the teacher's guide that accompanied the 3 equipment for the Material Objects unit. The overall goals of the unit were stated as follows: While dealing with material Objects in this unit the child will develop various attitudes, abilities and skills, including habits of careful Observation, a vocabulary that is useful in describing Objects, methods of recording observations and experiences, and the ability to discriminate fineudifferences and to recognize broad similarities. Two kinds of lessons were stressed in this unit. These were "invention lessons," involving activities of defining new concepts, and "discovery lessons," designed to let a child manipulate materials, broaden his background Of ex- perience and apply new ideas. It was assumed that the experimental group teachers closely followed the directions and recommended activities in the teacher's guide that ac- companied this unit. 3Material Objects, op. cit. uIbid., pp. ix-xi. 66 The Material Objects unit was arranged in the follow- ing schematized sequence . Lessons that are starred (*) are invention lessons. All others are discovery lessons. *What are Objects? ____]:———-‘*What are Properties? plants, animals, 1: buttons, blocks aluminum, brass, pine, walnut, vinyl 1 *What are comparison signs? *What are Materials?_a solids, liquidsg_*What is serial metals, woods, rocks and gases ordering? Idowels, corks, buttons Experimenting with materials Figure l.-—The sequence of topics taught in the Material Objects unit to pupils in the experimental group. The following is a list of lessons 5 in the order in 6 which they were taught in the Material Objects unit: 5Each activity represents approximately thirty minutes of class time. 6Material Objects, Op. cit. Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity Activity 67 Part One—-Introducing objects and their prOperties. 1—-Objects in the classroom 2——Object collections 3—-Object hunt 4-—Observing plants 5—-Observing animals 6—-Grandma's button box 7—-Object grab bag Part Two-—Introducing the concept of material. 8--Grouping collections Of objects 9—-Invention of the concept material lO-Using the concept of material ll—Sorting metals and woods l2—Changing the form of balsa wood l3-Observing the same material in different forms l4-Observing and sorting rocks lS-Observing liquids l6—Observing gases Part Three—-Comparison and serial ordering. l7-Inventing comparison of Objects using signs 18-Inventing serial ordering l9—Comparison of Objects using signs 20-Calico clam shells 21-Using comparison signs 68 Part Four-—Experimenting with material Objects. Activity 22-Rock candy and lump sugar Activity 23-Experimenting with liquids and mixtures Activity 24-Solid and liquid water Activity 25-Experimenting with air Activity 26-Experimenting with air and water In order to provide an example of a typical SCIS lesson for the reader, the following summary of Activity 8, "Grouping Collections of Objects," is presented.7 Like all of the other Material Object lessons, this activity was divided into five sections. The first section stated the "Objective of the learning experience" in a brief sentence. The second section provided "Background infor- mation" for the teacher. Relationships between this activity, past lessons, and succeeding activities were pointed out. A discussion Of how to implement the Objec- tives of this lesson with the materials provided was also included in this section. The third section was "Teaching materials." It consisted of a list of all the materials to be distributed to the children. Section four was made up of "Teaching suggestions." A general plan for carrying out this exercise and what to look for in the way of chil- dren's behaviors were mentioned. The last section was "suggested use of the student activity pages." The teacher was also told to watch the reactions of the children 7Ibid., pp. 20-21. 69 as they sorted the materials used with the activity pages since the methods employed by the children would give in- sight into the child's understanding. As a result of the experiences and the manipulation of equipment and materials, the child who completed the entire Material Objects unit was assumed to have had ex- periences with the skills and understandings given in Table 3. On the basis of the mental Operations deemed neces- sary for achieving concrete operations, the various activities in this unit provided practice in the mental Operations indicated in Table 4. Control Group.--The control group teachers followed the sequence of topics presented in the Scott Foresman 8 Company text, Science is Fun. The following tOpics were covered in the control group in the eighteen week period during which this study was carried on: 1. Weather.9 A unit on the weather made up the first part of the text Science is Fun. For this unit the text consisted of twenty-five pages of pictures related to weather and intended to serve as a "springboard" for class discussion. A two page section suggested that weather records be maintained and three pages of suggested experiments concluded the text materials. For the purposes of 8Beauchamp, loc. cit. 9Ibid., pp. 3-34. 70 TABLE 3.--Activities and related skills in the SCIS program.a Activity Number Skill, Understanding l Differentiate between an object and the prop— erties of that object. 2, 3, 4 Observe, describe, and sort Objects on the basis of their prOperties. 4, 5 Note similarities and differences among Objects. 6 Sort Objects on the basis of size, shape, or color. 7 Compare Objects having the same properties regardless of their physical configuration. 8 Sort objects by physical properties other than size or shape. 9, 10 Contrast and distinguish Objects made of one material from objects made of more than one material; classify Objects by materials of which it is composed. 11 Identify similarities and differences among a variety of metallic objects. 12 Identify and sort wood by properties and kind. 13, 14 Identify properties of objects made of the same material but in different forms; realize that an object's form can change while the material remains the same. 14,15,16 Describe properties of solids, liquids, and gases. l7, 19, 21 Use comparison signs to indicate comparing by a property. 18,19,20,21 Arrange Objects in a serial order by using comparison signs. 22,24 Recognize that the material of an object may remain the same, even though the object's appearance changes. 22,24 Recognize that two objects may appear to be different but are still made of the same material. aCompiled by the writer. 71 TABLE 4.--Mental operations related 30 the various SCIS activities. Mental Operation Activity Number Multiple classification 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 9, 10, 11 Serial ordering 17, 18, 19, 20, 21 Reversibility 22, 23, 24 Multiple relationality l, 8, 9, ll, 12, 13 aCompiled by the writer. this study, additional materials and information were provided to the control group by the investiga- tor through the facilities of The Science and Mathe- matics Teaching Center. These materials enabled additional activities to be carried on. A weather station was established. Children were given experi- ences in identifying clouds and using related weather equipment. A wind vane, anemometer , barometer, thermometer, and rain gauge were available for use in each classroom. Experiments and demonstrations involving evaporation and condensation were performed by teachers and pupils. A weather forecast chart was made. 2. We Move Things.10 The second unit in the text book dealt with the topics of force and energy. This unit was treated in the text much like the unit on weather. There were eleven pages of pictures 0 1 Ibid., pp. 35—52. 72 designed to stimulate class discussion and five pages of suggested eXperiments. The children studied and discussed how animals and other living things move. They discussed the concept of force. Simple machines were demonstrated and children used inclined planes, pulleys, levers, screws, and a wheel and axle to gain an understanding Of how these machines function. Magnets were used to demonstrate interaction at a distance and its relation to moving objects. 3. Animals.11 The third unit of the text dealt prim- arily with differences and similarities in groups of animals. This was the first unit in the text to present verbal as well as pictorial information. The first eleven pages of the unit stressed differences among animals by presenting a series of pictures of a variety of animals. This was followed by a ten page section stressing similarities among a variety of animals. The last page of this unit was made up Of a series of incongruous pictures such as a robin with four legs and a dog with feathers. The children were asked to discover what was wrong with each pic- ture.12 In addition to the information about animals in the text, the teachers emphasized eating habits, locomotor organs, and types of coats of various llIbid., pp. 53-76. l2lbid., pp. 66—76. 73 animals by bringing frogs, toads, fish, chicks, kittens, and puppies into the classroom for the children to observe. The two control classes took a trip to the University farms to observe a variety of animals. The teachers presented filmstrips related to the topics covered in the text. General activities such as drawing pictures related to the tOpics covered and prep- aration of small booklets entitled "What I Have Learned" accompanied each of these units. For the control group, the major difference between the presentation of topics during this study and past pre- sentations of the same topics was the availability of related equipment in quantities sufficient to provide material for all youngsters to study and manipulate. Tech- nical information and manipulative materials were made available for the teachers by the investigator and the Science and Mathematics Teaching Center of Michigan State University. Textbooks were provided for all of the chil- dren in each of the two classes by the school district. The children in the control group received no system— atic instruction in the mental Operations deemed necessary for acquiring concrete operational thinking. Some lessons provided the child with opportunities to Observe and class- ify and other lessons stressed differences in size or force. On the whole, these children participated in a series of 74 lessons that placed major emphasis on subject matter, not on the skills and processes of science. Table 5, on page 75,is a summary of the science activities presented to the children in the experimental and the control groups. Preparation Of the Evaluative Instrument.——In order to assess the develOpmental growth of the first grade chil- dren in this study, a means of evaluating the thinking of these children was needed. The work Of Piaget and his co- workers involving conservation as a criterion for deter- mining a child's stage Of develOpmental growth provided the assessment means that was needed. Four selected Piagetian conservation tasks were placed on film to give each child as standardized a presentation of visual stimuli as possible. A sound track was tape recorded to provide each child with verbal information about the four filmed tasks. In addition, tape recorded instructions for using 13 a color—coded answer form were prepared. All evaluative materials were developed and field tested in the metropoli- tan Lansing area during November and December, 1967. 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peed on Cops .Oospomoo HHwn OCO moom .mOCO COHpOm Cepmm .oom om COM pOCm OCCHpCoo .COHpom mo .Oom om Com mosCHpCoo pOCm .SOCOCsz mOCwC Cepmm poo oHpopo so ooHoC poem .xomn mQOpm COpCoEHCOme .oamCm HOOHCO ICHHmo m OpCH COpCmO oEme pm HHOC OCp HHOC OCm Osman COpCO mOCwC m.COpCOsHCOme "moo zo CO$OH> mCoEmo eoHooa APPENDIX B SCRIPTS USED TO TAPE AUDIO IN—PUT 132 133 Task 1 A. (Scene Opens. Allow few seconds for Observation.) "You see two glasses of colored water. The water has been colored to help you tell the glasses apart. Both glasses have EXACTLY the same amount of water in them." B. (Water is poured. Allow a few seconds for Observa— tion.) C. "NOW which container has more water in it: the glass with the green water, the container with the blue water or do they both have the same amount of water in them? Open to part 1 of your answer sheet. If you think that the GLASS with the GREEN WATER in the movie now has more water in it put a CIRCLE around the GREEN BOX near the number 1 on your answer sheet. If you think that the CONTAINER with the BLUE WATER in the movie now has more water in it put a CIRCLE around the BLUE BOX near the number 1 on your answer sheet. If you think that in the movie there is JUST AS MUCH green water in the glass as there is blue water in the container put a circle around the white box in part 1 of your answer sheet. If you can not tell put a circle around the orange box in part 1 of your answer sheet." 134 Task 2 A. (Scene Opens. Allow few seconds for Observation.) "You see two pla-dough pies. They are colored to help you tell them apart. Both pies are EXACTLY the SAME SIZE." B. (Red pie is fragmented. Allow time for Observation.) C. "NOW is there more blue pla-dough pie, is there more red pla—dough pie or is there just as much blue pie as there is red pie? Open to part 2 of your answer sheet. If you think there is now MORE blue pla-dough pie in the movie put a circle around the blue box near the number 2 on your answer sheet. If you think there is now MORE red pla-dough pie in the movie put a circle around the red box near the number 2 on your answer sheet. If you think there is now just as much blue pie as there is red pie in the movie put a circle around the white box in part 2 of your answer sheet. If you can not tell, put a circle around the orange box in part 2 of your answer sheet." 135 Task 3 A. (Scene Opens. Allow few seconds for Observation.) "You now see two balls made of pla-dough. The halls have been colored to help you tell them apart. The yellow ball is exactly as heavy as the purple ball." (Each ball is placed on the scale.) B. (Purple ball is rolled out. Allow time for Observa— tion.) C. "NOW if each of these pla—dough shapes were put back on the scale would the yellow ball be heavier, would the purple sausage shape be heavier or would they both weigh the same? Open to part 3 of your answer sheet. If you think the yellow pla-dough ball in the movie is heavier put a circle around the yellow box near the number 3 on your answer sheet. If you think the purple pla-dough sausage shape in the movie is heavier, put a circle around the purple box in part 3 of your answer sheet. If you think that the yellow ball is just as heavy as the purple sausage shape in the movie put a circle around the white box on your answer sheet. If you can not tell, put a circle around the orange box on your answer sheet." 136 Task 4 A. (Scene Opens. Allow few seconds for observation.) "You see two buildings made of plastic blocks. The buildings are colored to help you tell them apart. Both buildings are made up of EXACTLY the same number of blocks." B. (Blocks are rearranged. Allow few seconds for Observation.) C. "NOW which building has more blocks? The red build- ing, the blue building or do they both have the same number of blocks? Open to part 4 of your answer sheet. If you think that the red building in the movie has more blocks, put a circle around the red box near the number 4 on your answer sheet. If you think that the blue building in the movie has more blocks put a circle around the blue box in part 4 of your answer sheet. If you think that the red building has just as many blocks as the blue building in the movie put a circle around the white box in part 4 Of your answer sheet. If you can not tell put a circle around the orange box in part 4 of your answer sheet." APPENDIX C ANSWER FORMS 137 138 “ .———-—_ Yellow Red Orange 6 Blue Green Orange Blue—Green Red Orange 139 g 1” @ Yellow Purple Orange z - .~.-.~. ' ~-.r.,.:f..:;- - ~ ‘- :-’.¢.-‘-;-}.~.- . e Blue Red Orange APPENDIX D PROCEDURE FOLLOWED IN THE TRAINING SESSION FOR USING THE ANSWER FORM 140 141 TRAINING SESSION FOR USING THE ANSWER SHEET For the purpose Of Obtaining data in this study, the children were shown four film clips of selected Piagetian-like conservation tasks. The children were asked questions about the films and were instructed to mark answers on a specially-prepared answer form. In order to facilitate the proper use of this answer form, a five minute training session on how to mark answers was given to each group of children in this study. Children were brought from their classroom to a projection room and allowed to sit at any location where an answer sheet had been placed. After all of the children has found seats, the investigator welcomed the children and told them that they were going to see some movies about which they would be asked some questions. Their attention was directed to the answer form on the desk in front of them. They were told that they would use this answer form for answering the questions about the movies. They were further told that they would be shown how to use the forms. They were asked to print their names on the cover of the answer form and then to Open to the first page. They saw a single row of four one-half inch square boxes. The first box was colored yellow, the second box, red, the third box, white and the fourth box, orange. Two Objects, one round and red and the 142 other square and yellow were held up for each child to see. The child was then asked which Object was round. They were told to circle the red box on the answer sheet if the red object was round; circle the yellow box if the yellow Object was round; the white box if both objects were round; and the orange box if he could not tell which Object was round. Each child's answer sheet was checked for correctness of choice and any questions that arose were answered. APPENDIX E ANALYSIS OF COVARIANCE COMPUTATIONAL FORMULAS 143 144 The computational formulas used for the analysis of covariance in the study were compiled by Dr. Maryellen McSweeney of the Department of Counseling, Personnel Ser- vices, and Educational Psychology, Michigan State Univer- sity. An example of one such analysis of covariance for determining the significance of differences between adjusted post-test mean scores follows. Data from the present study is used in the example given. Pre-test scores are signified by X and post—test scores by Y. XX denotes a pre-test sum of squares, YY a post-test sum of squares, and XY a cross-product sum of squares. A refers to the main effect of treatment, B to the main effect of sex, AB to an interaction, E to error, and T to total. 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