Cognitive Development

Piagetian Tasks: Studying the Stages of Cognitive Development through Observations of Children

Piaget created many tasks to focus on the specificities of how children develop and compare how children in different stages of development complete these tasks. Piaget studied how children and youth gradually become able to think logically and scientifically, and studied the stages of cognitive development through a series of tasks he asked children of different ages to complete. I focused on three of these tasks: the clay task, water task, and coin task with two children of different ages. One of the children was 7 years old, while the other child was 11 years old.

The first task we did was the clay task, where we began by dividing a chunk of play dough into two equal balls. I did this task first with the younger child, Quinn, and asked her "Do these balls have the same amount of clay or does one have more than the other?" She said, yes, she agreed that there was the same amount of clay in both balls. Then, I squished one of the balls of clay down into a pancake, and asked: "Is there the same amount of clay or does one have more than the other?" She hesitated for a moment, before saying “well yes isn’t there? Because you didn’t add any or take any away, right?” I said it was true I didn’t add or remove any clay, and then asked her why she thought that. She said “well you didn’t add any or take any away, so that means there’s still the same amount of clay.” This showed that she was beginning to understand object permanence, and she was beginning to think more logically about concepts. She is 7, so this activity showed that she was just beginning to leave the Preoperational stage, and progress towards the Concrete operational stage. When I asked Alexa, the 11 year old, the same questions, she similarly agreed that the balls had the same amount of clay, and asked “why are you asking such a simple question this is easyyy”. I smiled, and then squished one of the balls and asked her if there was still the same amount of clay in both balls, and she said “obviously yes, because you didn’t add any or take any away.” This showed her development of object permanence, and her lack of hesitation displayed the gap between her and Quinn. She was well into the concrete operational phase, displayed by her development of object permanence and logical reasoning.

The next task we completed was the water task, where I began by taking out two identical glasses, both of which were the same height. I began the experiment with Quinn, the younger child, and poured some water about half way up the side of the tall, skinny glass. Then I began slowly pouring water into the other glass and told her to tell me to stop when the glasses had the same amount of water. She watched very closely, and then said “stop!” when the two glasses were about equally filled with water. Then, I asked her to pour one of the glasses of water into a wide glass that was the same height as the original glass. I proceeded by asking Quinn: “Do they have the same amount of water?” She looked at both glasses very carefully, and then said: “No, that one has less because the level of water is lower—see.” Then she pointed to both the levels of water, showing that there was a lower level of water in the wider glass, and the taller glass had a higher level of water. She basically answered my next question, which was why she thought that. I said “okay, thank you!” This showed her lack of understanding of object permanence, showing that she still was in the preoperational stage in some ways. Her intelligence is both egocentric and intuitive, which shows that in some senses she may still be in the preoperational stage. Even though she understood the clay task, her logical reasoning may still be developing, because she is 7 which is the border of both the preoperational and concrete operational stages of development. When I completed the same task with Alexa, age 11, I received similar results to the last task. She began by agreeing both identical glasses had the same amount of water, and then I proceeded to pour one of the glasses into a wider glass, which made the level of water lower. Then I asked the same question: “Do they have the same amount of water?” She then rolled her eyes and said, “yeah, duh, you didn’t take any water away, it’s just in a wider glass.” I then smiled and said thank you for doing the experiment with me. Her quick conclusion that both the glasses had the same amount of water, even though they didn’t necessarily still look the same, showed her development of logical reasoning, which placed her far into the concrete operational stage of development.

The third task I completed was the coin task, where I used pennies to make two equal rows of coins: 5 in each row. I placed one row in front of me, and one in front of Quinn. I asked the child if the two rows had the same number of coins. She looked at them and agreed that there were the same amount of coins in both rows. Then I said, "I am going to spread my row out." I spread your row of coins to look longer than Quinn’s row, and asked again if there were the same amount of coins in both of our rows. She counted both rows of coins, restarting because she counted one coin twice while counting the second row. Then she concluded that there were the same amount of coins in each row, and answered that “yes” there was still the same amount of coins. I asked why she thought that, and she responded, saying, “I counted them and they both added up to five.” This showed her Development of memory and counting, which are skills developed in preoperational stage, as well as the concrete operational stage, showing that she is probably on the cusp between both stages of development. When I did the same activity with Alexa, she began by agreeing that “yes, both rows are equal”, and when I spread my row out, she said “yes, obviously they’re still the same, there’s five in both rows and you didn’t add or subtract any coins.” This quick logical reasoning and awareness of larger concepts shows that she is definitely far into the concrete operational stage.

Overall, all three experiments were very successful, and showed a lot about both girls’ stages of development. Alexa’s age and quick competency showed that she is definitely far into the concrete operational stage, and may even be entering the formal operational stage, which begins around Alexa’s age. Quinn was 7 years old, and showed both developments into the concrete operational stage, however also is still making progress in the preoperational stage. This was presented in the water task, when Quinn thought that the level of water dictated the amount of water in the glasses, showing a lack of object permanence and logical reasoning. I learned that it can be difficult to determine the stages of development because many children are on the cusp between two stages of development. I also learned that the range of ages that Piaget’s theory of cognitive development theorized for each stage was actually very accurate, because both children I observed were on the cusp of both stages of development according to his theory, and they both showed evidence of falling into two stages of development.