Afra Mohamed Taha
Child Development
Assignment No. 1
Piaget used a geometrical experiment called "cows on a farm" to test for
conservation of area. To illustrate this, Piaget used green cardboard to
represent farmland. Two identical green farms were established, each had
a little wooden cow placed upon it, and subjects were asked whether the
cows had the same amount of grass to feed upon. Piaget would proceed to
equally add little cubic farmhouses to the models. In one farmyard the
houses where all arranged in a tidy row, on the other farmland the houses
were all scattered about. Until the ages of 8-9, children are irresistibly
inclined to think there's less grazing land on the farmland which contains
the scattered houses.
2007-09-08
http://facultyweb.cortland.edu/andersmd/PIAGET/a3.HTML
Stage:
First child; Preoperational stage (2-7)
Second child; Concrete operational stage (7-11)
Operation:
Conservation of area
Goal:
The goal of this experiment is to examine the sense of conservation for
the two children.
Materials:
Two green cardboard with the same size to represent the farms.
Two little wooden cows.
12 cubic frame houses
Procedure:
- I placed the two green cardboards on a table.
- I put one wooden cow on each of them.
- I scattered 6 of the houses on one cardboard, to represent
Farm 1
- I put the other 6 houses in a fine row on the other cardboard,
farm 2.
I asked a 6 year old child, which farmland has more grazing land?
First he answered farm 2, the he hesitated.
Then I asked a 9 year old child the same question, he answered, both have
the same grazing land.
Analysis:
According to Piaget cognitive and language development theory the first
child will be in the preoperational stage, and the indication of his answer
shows that he is in transitional stage.
The second child's answer indicates that he is in concrete operational
stage, because in this stage children have the ability to conserve the
physical characteristics of objects, therefore this is mastery indication.