Dutch researchers investigated the effects of Obuchova's method of teaching measurement to kindergarten children with no knowledge of conservation or seriation. Results indicated training was highly effective. Skills were transferred to conservation tasks not taught in training. Transfer to concepts not included in training was also observed. (SM)

This study of 145 middle class first grade students investigated whether a relationship exists between early acquisition of Piagetian conservation tasks and gifted performance on a mental abilities test. Students were evaluated individually on tasks involving the conservation of number, of liquid quantity, and of mass. A moderate correlation was…

This study examines the extent to which modeling facilitates transformational problem solving in mathematics for children in kindergarten and first grade. Subjects were 20 children selected from each level. They responded to two problems for each of four problem types (counting on, story problems, quantitative comparisons, and ordination) under…

In order to determine if there is a relationship between reading achievement and the ability to conserve as measured by replications of Piagetian conservation tasks, 160 beginning second-grade students were identified as achievers or low achievers according to reading and intelligence test scores, and their performance on the Piagetian tasks was…

A functional (as opposed to structural) theory of intellectual development is presented and used to generate specific performance models for Piagetian tasks involving the control of variables (cf. Inhelder and Piaget, 1958). On the basis of these models, it is concluded that intelligent, field independent 7- and 8-year-olds should be able to…

A study was conducted to clarify a number of issues related to Piaget's theory of invariant sequantiality in child cognitive development. Ss were 143 middle-class white children of bright, average and retarded psychometric abilities (measured by performance on the Stanford-Binet Intelligence Test). Bright and average Ss were chronologically aged…

Primary school children at different stages of acquisition of conservation pretended that their judgments on a series of conservation problems were the opposite of their actual beliefs. The nonconservers and transitional conservers made significant gains in conservation, while the conservers did not regress. Cognitive dissonance training is…

Kindergarten, first and second grade children participated in a study of the development of conservation of equality and inequality. (BD)

Describes study that investigated whether the use of LOGO accelerates cognitive development of five- and seven-year-old kindergarten students as measured by Piagetian-based tests of conservation of length, number, and ability to identify geometric shapes. Pretests and posttests are described and directions for future research are given.…

This study investigated: (1) the level of thinking of the Iteso Primary School children in Uganda; and (2) whether abilities involved in the Piagetian tasks of conservation, classification, and seriation develop at the same rate. The subjects, ages 6 to 13 (the period of the 7-year African primary school) were interviewed in their own language and…

A general theory of how children learn conservation concepts is presented. The acquisition process is described at an abstract level in terms of a rule-sampling system, implying a three-state Markov model with identifiable parameters. Three experiments testing the model's quantitative predictions about conservation learning experiments are…

The amount of social pretend play in free-play sessions of small groups of five to seven year olds, and the symbolic features of this play, were noted. Conservation, verbal symbol substitution, and role-playing skills, were assessed as measures of cognitive symbolic skill. Results provide no evidence that these social class differences reflect…

A study was made to examine effects of peer collaboration on children's cognitive development and to ascertain whether effects of collaboration varied across American and Russian cultures. A total of 84 girls and boys (42 from a kindergarten in Moscow and 42 from an elementary school in Ithaca, New York), 5 through 7 years of age, initially…

A study was conducted to determine whether a significant correlation exists between developmental age and the concept of conservation. The hypothesis was that if developmental age and the concept of conservation are related, then stages of understanding conservation will increase as developmental age increases. Ss consisted of 30 primary children…