Piaget's Developmental Stages

Introduction:Piaget believed that there were four main stages in which children pass during cognitive development. The sensorimotor stage lasts for the first two years of a child 's life, and learning primarily occurs through their senses. The child will also develop object permanence. The pre-operational stage is where a child 's thinking becomes more dominated by observation and perception. In this stage, a child develops the ability to decentre, and conservation will follow this development. The concrete operational stage is where children develop full ability to conserve. In the formal operational stage, the child can think hypothetically, and decentration continues through this stage, allowing the child to display hypothetico-deductive
Since more children were able to conserve mass then liquid, this suggests that the conservation of mass comes before the conservation of liquid.

Figure Three:Figure Four:These results show that the hypothesis "significantly more 6 year olds will be able to conserve both liquid and/or mass, than 5 year olds" is true, as shown by table three. We can therefore accept experimental hypothesis one, and discard the null hypothesis.

DiscussionValidity:The ecological validity is high, as the participants were tested in a natural setting. This experiment also had experimental validity as the procedure was clearly followed each time, as well as the majority of extraneous variables were controlled. The experiment was valid because I operationalised my dependant variable, making the standardised questioned a closed question. I used repeated measures design, and removed any order effects through
This will be told to your child before the study begins.

In agreement with the guideline of the British Psychology Society, the results of the study will be kept completely confidential, and no personal details will be required during the experiment, although the birthday and sex of your child will be recorded. The name of your child will be asked, but this will not be recorded, it is merely to establish a friendship between the experimenter and your child.

If you choose to allow your child to participate, please do not inform them of this experiment or 'game ', as this may affect the outcome and therefore make the results unusable, as they will not be completely natural.

Please send back the permission slip to your child 's teacher by the 18th March. If you wish to see the results of the study then please contact Miss Kinslow, Psychology teacher, Tanglin Trust Senior School.

Thank you.

Yours sincerely,Kayleigh Blackburn, Sixth Form 4Tanglin Trust School_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _I do/do not give permission for my child to participate in this