Chapter 14. Piaget’s Conservation-of-Liquid Task

Synopsis

Human Development Video Activity

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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.

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PIAGET'S CONSERVATION-OF-LIQUID TASK

Estimated Completion Time:

Approximately 5 minutes.

Synopsis:

According to Piaget, children’s initial ability to reason logically is reflected in their understanding of conservation -- the idea that some changes in the appearance of an object or substance do not alter its key properties, such as quantity. In this activity, you’ll view two clips depicting the conservation-of-liquid quantity task and then describe how the children’s behavior illustrates Piaget’s theories
of cognitive development.

Video #1

Consistent with Piaget’s theory, children under the age of 7 usually say that the amount of liquid in a tall narrow container is greater than the amount in a shorter, wider container.

Essay Question #1

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Question 14.1

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This child appears to be in the preoperational stage. Like her, children in this stage tend to center their thinking on a single, highly salient aspect of the problem, such as the height of the liquid in the taller container, and to ignore other relevant aspects, such as the relative widths of the two containers.

Video #2

By age 7 or 8, most children are able to succeed on the conservation-of-liquid task.

Essay Question #2

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Question 14.2

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This child appears to be in the concrete operational stage. Like him, children in this stage are able to “decenter” -- that is, they can focus on more than one dimension of the problem at a time. As a result, they are not misled by the relative heights of the liquids in the two containers and recognize that the differences in the height and width of the two containers offset each other.

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