Chapter 13. Piaget’s Conservation-of-Number Task

Synopsis

Human Development Video Activity
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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.
young child: counting, looking thru abacus
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PIAGET'S CONSERVATION-OF-NUMBER TASK

Estimated Completion Time:

Approximately 5 minutes.

Synopsis:

This activity focuses on the changes in thinking that make it possible for older children to pass the Piagetian conservation-of-number quantity task. In this module, you’ll watch a 4.5-year-old failing and a 7-year-old succeeding at this task and then explain what level of thinking each child employs.

Video

The same age-related pattern in children’s reasoning ability that you saw in the conservation-of-liquid task is also apparent in Piaget’s test for the conservation-of-number. In this test, a child is presented with two rows of objects of equal number.
The experimenter then rearranges one row in some manner and asks the child if the two rows now contain the same
or different amounts. The child in the first video is 4 ½ years old. The child in the second video is 7 years old.

Age 4 1/2
Age 7

Essay Question

teacher and child counting
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Question 13.1

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Consistent with Piaget’s description of preoperational thinking, the 4.5-year-old focuses on a single, highly salient aspect of the problem: the length of the row. In contrast, the 7-year-old evidences concrete operational thinking by recognizing that since nothing has been added to or subtracted from the experimenter’s row, the length of the row is irrelevant.

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