COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Less immediately visible is an intellectual growth spurt during this period (Andrich & Styles, 1994). The young person is becoming capable of thinking about the world, and dealing with the challenges it presents in new and more powerful ways.
The period of formal operations
In Piaget’s view, the cognitive advances of middle childhood (the concrete operational period) are limited because they can only be applied to relatively accessible problems, i.e. tasks concerned with the physical ‘here and now’, or easily imagined scenarios. During adolescence, many individuals progress beyond this limitation, and are able to deal with more abstract cognitive tasks. Piaget calls this (the final stage in his model) the period of formal operations. [period of formal operations the last of Piaget’s stages of intellectual development, when thought is no longer dependent on concrete operations tied to immediately present objects and actions, but is based on reasoning about abstract propositions and the evaluation of alternative possible outcomes] Once again, Piaget and his collaborators studied this phase of development in great detail (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). They set a number of tasks for children and adolescents, designed to illuminate changes in their reasoning processes. In one task, participants were presented with a set of pendulums, with objects of different weights suspended from strings of different lengths. The task was to determine what influences the speed with which the pendulum swings: is it the weight of the object, the length of the string, the height from which the object is dropped, the speed with which it is pushed, or some combination of factors? Children still in the concrete operational stage set about the task rather haphazardly. They tried guessing and random combinations of actions but were unable to isolate the effects of a single factor. Adolescents (aged 14–15) who had reached formal operations worked in a much more systematic fashion. They tested the effects of varying a factor (e.g. length of string) while holding the other factors constant (e.g. using the same weight for each trial), keeping track of the different manipulations and possibilities. In due course, they came up with the correct answer. (What do you think? Test your own formal operational reasoning.
Another problem devised by Inhelder and Piaget (1958) was a chemistry task, which involved creating a yellow solution from five unidentified liquids, each initially in its own test tube. Some combinations of colours achieved this outcome, and others removed it. How would you set about finding which combinations work, and then how to make the colour disappear? Concrete operational children favoured a trial-and-error approach: they kept trying random mixtures. Some children never worked it out, some hit occasionally on a combination that worked but were not sure exactly how they had done it, or how to reverse the process (i.e. make the colour disappear). The formal operational thinkers were much more systematic. They contemplated the range of possible combinations, formulated hypotheses, and tested them sequentially; they also kept a record of the combinations they had tried and the outcomes. In these (and many other) tasks, formal operational thinkers demonstrate not simply that they are systematic and able to keep track of their attempts, but that they are able to formulate abstract hypotheses about possible outcomes. They are able to conceive of different propositions about the same set of factors, and to work out means of testing them to achieve a resolution. Formal operational thought is not restricted to tackling science education puzzles. Again, from a Piagetian perspective, the important point is that this higher level of reasoning enables young people to deal with many aspects of the world more profoundly. They now have access to more abstract ideas and principles, and some become very interested in the principles governing the broader social environment. For example, many adolescents develop an interest in political issues, human rights, feminism, the environment or spiritual matters (Klaczinski, 2000) – all concerns that reflect their ability to conceive of alternatives to the present reality. This is a time of ‘great ideals’ (Piaget & Inhelder, 1966).
Less immediately visible is an intellectual growth spurt during this period (Andrich & Styles, 1994). The young person is becoming capable of thinking about the world, and dealing with the challenges it presents in new and more powerful ways.
The period of formal operations
In Piaget’s view, the cognitive advances of middle childhood (the concrete operational period) are limited because they can only be applied to relatively accessible problems, i.e. tasks concerned with the physical ‘here and now’, or easily imagined scenarios. During adolescence, many individuals progress beyond this limitation, and are able to deal with more abstract cognitive tasks. Piaget calls this (the final stage in his model) the period of formal operations. [period of formal operations the last of Piaget’s stages of intellectual development, when thought is no longer dependent on concrete operations tied to immediately present objects and actions, but is based on reasoning about abstract propositions and the evaluation of alternative possible outcomes] Once again, Piaget and his collaborators studied this phase of development in great detail (Inhelder & Piaget, 1958). They set a number of tasks for children and adolescents, designed to illuminate changes in their reasoning processes. In one task, participants were presented with a set of pendulums, with objects of different weights suspended from strings of different lengths. The task was to determine what influences the speed with which the pendulum swings: is it the weight of the object, the length of the string, the height from which the object is dropped, the speed with which it is pushed, or some combination of factors? Children still in the concrete operational stage set about the task rather haphazardly. They tried guessing and random combinations of actions but were unable to isolate the effects of a single factor. Adolescents (aged 14–15) who had reached formal operations worked in a much more systematic fashion. They tested the effects of varying a factor (e.g. length of string) while holding the other factors constant (e.g. using the same weight for each trial), keeping track of the different manipulations and possibilities. In due course, they came up with the correct answer. (What do you think? Test your own formal operational reasoning.
Another problem devised by Inhelder and Piaget (1958) was a chemistry task, which involved creating a yellow solution from five unidentified liquids, each initially in its own test tube. Some combinations of colours achieved this outcome, and others removed it. How would you set about finding which combinations work, and then how to make the colour disappear? Concrete operational children favoured a trial-and-error approach: they kept trying random mixtures. Some children never worked it out, some hit occasionally on a combination that worked but were not sure exactly how they had done it, or how to reverse the process (i.e. make the colour disappear). The formal operational thinkers were much more systematic. They contemplated the range of possible combinations, formulated hypotheses, and tested them sequentially; they also kept a record of the combinations they had tried and the outcomes. In these (and many other) tasks, formal operational thinkers demonstrate not simply that they are systematic and able to keep track of their attempts, but that they are able to formulate abstract hypotheses about possible outcomes. They are able to conceive of different propositions about the same set of factors, and to work out means of testing them to achieve a resolution. Formal operational thought is not restricted to tackling science education puzzles. Again, from a Piagetian perspective, the important point is that this higher level of reasoning enables young people to deal with many aspects of the world more profoundly. They now have access to more abstract ideas and principles, and some become very interested in the principles governing the broader social environment. For example, many adolescents develop an interest in political issues, human rights, feminism, the environment or spiritual matters (Klaczinski, 2000) – all concerns that reflect their ability to conceive of alternatives to the present reality. This is a time of ‘great ideals’ (Piaget & Inhelder, 1966).
No comments:
Post a Comment