The Concrete Operational Stage of Cognitive Development

By around seven years the majority of children can conserve liquid, because they understand that when water is poured into a differently shaped glass, the quantity of liquid remains the same, even though its appearance has changed. Five-year-old children would think that there was a different amount because their appearance has changed.

Conservation of number (see video below) develops soon after this. Piaget (1954b) set out a row of counters in front of the child and asked her/him to make another row the same as the first one. Piaget spread out his row of counters and asked the child if there were still the same number of counters.

Most children aged seven could answer this correctly, and Piaget concluded that this showed that by seven years of age, children were able to conserve number.

Some forms of conservation (such as mass) as understood earlier than others (volume). Piaget used the term horizonal decalage to describe this (and other) developmental inconsistencies.

Evaluation of Conservation Tasks

Several aspects of the conservation tasks have been criticized, for example, that they fail to take account of the social context of the child’s understanding.

Rose and Blank (1974) argued that when a child gives the wrong answer to a question, we repeat the question in order to hint that their first answer was wrong. This is what Piaget did by asking children the same question twice in the conservation experiments, before and after the transformation.

When Rose and Blank replicated this but asked the question only once, after the liquid had been poured, they found many more six-year-olds gave the correct answer. This shows children can conserve at a younger age than Piaget claimed.

Porpodas (1987) found that asking more than one question wasn’t really the problem.

This research suggested that the questions provided ‘verbal interference’ which prevented children from transferring information across from the pretransformation stage.

This implied that the problem was a cognitive one, but not exactly of the nature originally suggested.

Baucal & Stepanovic (2006)

In an attempt to answer the ‘conservation or conversation?’ question, ie whether the conservation failures are due to cognitive immaturity or the language use or power relations between the child participant and adult experimenter, Baucal & Stepanovic (2006) analyzed the results of many tests of the repeated question hypothesis.

They also conducted an additional test which aimed to distinguish between cognitive and social effects by using a repeated question about a ‘transformation’ which had not changed (pouring liquid back into the same glass so only the question and not the actual change could influence their
response).

Interestingly, the results were not as predicted. They expected that any child’s response would be the same on the standard and modified tasks, but this was not the case.

However, they were unable to conclude whether the cause was or was not repeating the question.

Arcidiacono and Perret-Clermont (2009)

Research has gone on to explore the ‘conversation about conservation’ idea which underpins the interview method.

Arcidiacono and Perret-Clermont (2009) suggested that children’s statements about conservation are not, as Piaget claimed, simply a product of their cognitive level but of their social interaction with the interviewer.

This suggests that the child’s reasoning is ‘co-constructed’ during the testing process. If adult  ‘accept’ wrong (or right) answers without asking for a justification (argument about why it is so), which is what Piaget was really interested in.

McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974)

Another feature of the conservation task which may interfere with children’s understanding is that the adult purposely alters the appearance of something, so the child thinks this alteration is important.

McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974) devised a study of the conservation of numbers in which the alteration was accidental.

When two identical rows of sweets were laid out and the child was satisfied there were the same number in each, a “naughty teddy” appeared. Whilst playing around, teddy actually messed up one row of sweets. Once he was safely back in a box the children were asked if there were the same number of sweets.

The children were between four- and six-years-old, and more than half gave the correct answer.

This suggests that, once again, Piaget’s design prevented the children from showing that they could conserve at a younger age than he claimed.

Classification

Piaget also studied children’s ability to classify objects – put them together based on their color, shape, etc.

Classification is the ability to identify the properties of categories, relate categories or classes to one another, and use categorical information to solve problems.

Children can group objects by common features, such as grouping animals into birds, mammals, reptiles, etc. They can also understand that objects can belong to multiple categories at the same time (e.g., a dog is both a pet and an animal).

One component of classification skills is the ability to group objects according to some dimension that they share. The other ability to is order subgroups hierarchically, so that each new grouping will include all previous subgroups.

For example, he found that children in the pre-operational stage had difficulty in understanding that a class can include a number of sub-classes. For example, a child is shown four red flowers and two white ones and is asked “are there more red flowers or more flowers?”. A typical five-year-old would say “more red ones”.

Piaget stated that the child focuses on one aspect, either class or sub-class (i.e. called this class inclusion).

It is not until he can decentre that he can simultaneously compare both the whole and the parts, which make up the whole. The child can then understand the relationship between class and sub-class.

Evaluation of Classification Tasks

James McGarrigle designed an experiment that tested Piaget’s explanation that a child is unable to compare class with sub-class because of centration. Centration refers to a child’s tendency to only deal with one aspect of a situation at a time.

Piaget’s class inclusion test used wooden beads, some white some brown. He found that children in the preoperational stage were unable to give the right answer to the question, “Are there more brown beads or more wooden beads?”

McGarrigle used a slightly different version of this test. He sued four model cows, three of them black, and one white. He laid all the cows on their sides, as if they were sleeping. Six-year-old children were then asked:

1. Are there more black cows or more cows? (This is the question Piaget asked)
2. Are there more black cows or sleeping cows?

Results: 25% percent of the children answered question 1 correctly, but 48% of the children answered question 2 correctly.

This suggests that children are capable of understanding class inclusion rather earlier than Piaget believed. This is probably because the task was made easier to understand.

McGarrigle concluded that is was the way Piaget worded his question that prevented the younger children from showing that they understood the relationship between class and sub-class.

Seriation

The cognitive operation of seriation (logical order) involves mentally arranging objects or situations along a quantifiable dimension, such as height, weight, size, color, shape, or type.

Reversibility

Critical Evaluation

Dasen (1994) showed that different cultures achieved different operations at different ages depending on their cultural context.

Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian desert with 8-14 year old Aborigines. He gave them conservation of liquid tasks and spatial awareness tasks.

He found that the ability to conserve came later in the aboriginal children, between ages 10 and 13 ( as opposed to between 5 and 7, with Piaget’s Swiss sample).

However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the Aboriginal children than the Swiss children.

Such a study demonstrates cognitive development is not purely dependent on maturation but on cultural factors too – spatial awareness is crucial for nomadic groups of people.

Greenfield (1966) states that schooling influenced the acquisition of such concepts as conservation.

Here are some activities that are suitable for children in the concrete operational stage:

1. Sorting and classifying objects based on size, shape, color, texture, or other characteristics.
2. Measuring objects with rulers, tape measures, or other tools to compare and contrast their size and length.
3. Playing games that require strategic thinking, such as chess or checkers.
4. Solving simple math problems involving addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division.
5. Conducting experiments to test hypotheses, such as exploring the properties of magnets or water.
6. Drawing or creating diagrams to represent information, such as a map or chart.
7. Building structures with blocks or Legos, and experimenting with different designs.
8. Learning a new language or practicing a foreign language.
9. Reading and discussing stories with moral or ethical dilemmas.
10. Engaging in role-playing activities or simulations to explore social situations and relationships.