Just Say No to Piaget

This is a clear example of why Piaget's analysis is bogus. This child is extremely hesitant to use the cued term 'more' in all cases, since he's obviously looking at a linear metric every single time, rather than a volumetric metric as 'more' typically implies. I think it much more likely that he's bending the meaning of 'more' to accommodate the novel social situation and the assumption that the interrogator is repeatedly using the word 'more' to reference some actual disparity between the compared objects.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Piaget

[misterplaxco]

@minzhide The interviewer makes at least two mistakes: asking leading questions and changing the task to fit his response, saying, "We'll just do four okay." This also affects the results. In any case, it is hard to claim that Piaget is bogus from Scott's reaction on one poorly executed task. It seems you are using one aspect of an example of a child exhibiting Piagetian stages (preoperational answers with some reasoning- showing emerging logic) to reject an entire theoretical framework.

[hello542]

"a clear example of why Piaget's analysis is bogus"? your child could not conserve, apart from on the volume task. This supports his theory as it shows how he is beginning to conserve. Also your experiment did not follow Piaget's standard 2 question condition. You repeated asked him how many coins there were and even had to take away 2 when he kept saying there were 4. Don't criticise Piaget when you can not a) produce findings that goes against his theory and b) produce a reliable experiment.

[PowerQuebecois]

@atheistium yes, thank you.

[misterplaxco]

@minzhide It may be the case that he established this boundary with the pennies, but his final response in each of three tasks clearly exhibits preoperational thinking, especially in the third. He is able to explain that the row is spread out and why the liquid in the second tube is taller, but clearly still believes that there is more liquid in the second tube and less play-doh in the squashed pile.

[minzhide]

@JustATheist Then why not ignore them and get on with your life in a format that allows you communicate comprehensibly?

[minzhide]

@JustATheist YouTube's format? You mean written language?

[minzhide]

@misterplaxco I think you're right about the bit at 11s, but later he is definitely talking about rows, so it still stands that he's established an imaginary boundary cutting off the two pennies that moved out of the previously occupied space in the top row. This sort of imaginary boundary is frequently tremendously important, IME, in driving the logic of children's responses to these sorts of problems.

[misterplaxco]

@minzhide

If you watch his hand gesture at 11 seconds, it seems as though he may be counting two groups of four coins (in squares instead of rows) and one column of two coins- (: :) (: :) (:). This would help make more sense of his later response (after the coins are spread out) when he says the bottom row has four and top row has two.

[atheistium]

The child doesn't understand the meaning of more that the adult is taking it in.

He explained during the coin thing that there wasn't MORE coins but it was wider. The teacher kept saying more and obviously the child complied. The experiment is flawed.

[JustATheist]

@minzhide I think your taking me to critically and I've found that it is difficult to produce comprehensible sentences within Youtube's format. In most cases I would end up defending your stance and I often see a paradox between his theory and my personal observations. I just wouldn't agree that a 3 minute video deserves such a controversial title, it is a rather uninformative video in regards to an old but large debate.