Piagetian Tasks and Theory in Children Observation

Observation

Piagetian Tasks

The observation began with the child getting all of the large blue circles at first. In that same pile, he also added a large red triangle, and large green square. In his second pile, he had all red and medium sized shapes. Lastly, in his third pile, there was a combination of large blue and other colors and sizes of circles, squares, and triangles. When I asked him to name the piles, he pointed to the last pile with the large blue circle and said that one was “azul”, because that he knows a few colors in Spanish. The second pile with all the red and one yellow was called “rojo”, because the majority of shapes were red. Then his last row he called “amarillo”. It is recalled that yellow or “amarillo” is his favorite color. I then asked him if he could rearrange by different styles or shapes, but he rearranged by color. All the red together, then yellow, blue, green, etc. For the second part of the observation, I placed 2 large circles on the top row then 2 small circles in the bottom row. I asked him which one had more, and he said the top row. I added a large circle to the bottom row. He persisted that the top circle had more, because both circles were bigger. Then, I decided to have two rows of all small shapes. Five in the top row and 4 in the bottom row except one shape was slightly bigger than the other two. He said that the bottom row had more because of the bigger shape. Then I had two rows with two shapes all the same size, and there he said that he did not know which one had more because they were all small.

Your Opinion of What You Saw

From the beginning, I thought he would be arranging them in the same color family. He tried going by size, but it seemed that the mixture of colors and shapes got him a little overwhelmed. Therefore, he maybe decided by color in his second row. His third row was a combination of everything that he had left over in my opinion. The larger pieces did catch his attention more, because he went to those first as he was naming them by color. When I asked him to name the shapes, he smiled and gave a look of confusion. Like if he was saying, “what are you asking me to do? Rocket science?” Therefore, he decided to name them by color. He really knows his colors, especially in Spanish. As for the conservation of numbers, it did not surprise me that larger shapes mean more to a child of his age. He knows to count up to 10. However, he does not have the idea of quantity yet. When I ask him how old is he, he says 4, but puts 5. If I was in the place of this child, I would first of all be wondering why is he asking me all these questions regarding piles, and names and does not let me play freely. I would probably be overwhelmed as him. I try to recall how I was at his age with shapes and color. I remember I was good with a toy that was a circle, where you put in shapes that were cut in the circle. I would definitely be better with shapes than color I believe.

Research Observation

This specific observation is on Piagetian tasks. So, the theory it is specific on is Piaget’s. The stage that is observed during this observation was the preoperational stage. This was obvious when it came to the child naming the piles. He chose names that all had to do with things that he liked. This is true in the preoperational stage. As it states in the book, “Stable concepts are formed…egocentrism is present and magical beliefs are constructed.” (Santrock, 2014) (176) Due to the connections between sensory and physical action during this stage, the child was able to rearrange the shapes in different ways when he was asked to. The child also asked me, “Why are we doing this?” This shows that he is using his intuitive thought substage. He wants to know why he is doing this exercise.

Once I started with the conservation part of the observation, the child was not able to correlate between amount and size. However, since conservation occurs mostly in the concrete operational stage which is from 7 to 11 years old, the child was unable to answer correctly during this part of the observation. “Children do not conserve all quantities or conserve on all tasks simultaneously.” (Santrock, 2014) (179) At the age of four the child still does not understand that even though the items were arranged differently, they still had the same quantities. For example, when I placed two circles in each row, and they were arranged the same, he said he was unable to know which one has more because they looked the same. He was not able to tell me that they were the same or equal. I think this observation was a perfect example of what the book states. It was also very fun and helpful to be able to manipulate the observation and see the child’s various reactions.