applicability of piaget’s liquid conservation to sri lankan children

Applicability of Piaget’s Liquid Conservation to Sri Lankan Children

T.MukunthanDept. Early Childhood and primary Education

The Open University of Sri Lanka

Introduction

• Jean Piaget is the most renowned developmental psychologist who studied how children develop cognitively.

• Much of Piaget’s theory was found on the problems he presented to children of different ages.

• Based on this theory he described how children develop cognitively through four different stages.

April 10, 2023 2T.Mukunthan, SLAAS

Introduction..

• Teacher training programmes too are greatly influenced by Piaget’s Theory.

• The Open University of Sri Lanka conducts a certificate programme for the Pre-School teachers and ‘Development of mathematical Skills’ (is a compulsory course in this Programme.

• The content of this course is mainly based on Piaget’s cognitive development theory.


Introduction..

• Content of the subject Mathematical concepts in the pre-School teacher training programmes conducted by the National Institute of Education and Eastern University of Sri Lanka is also based on Piagetian concepts.


Introduction..

• Piaget developed his theory of cognitive development in a cultural context which is dissimilar to Sri Lankan context.

• Nevertheless, the influence of Piaget’s Cognitive development theory is evident in early childhood education and primary education.


Problem

• Considering the impact of Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory in the education of our children and conclusions of studies conducted on applicability of his theories to different cultural contexts, the researcher feels that the problem whether children’s conception of ‘liquid conservation’ is applicable to Sri Lankan children should be investigated.


Conservation

“Recognition that a physical property remains untransformed despite evidence.” - Piaget(1941)


Sample of this study Age Group Urban Rural Estates Total

4-5 5 5 5 15

5-6 5 5 5 15

6-7 5 5 5 15

7-8 5 5 5 15


Procedure


Procedure

• The child is first given two cylindrical containers of equal dimensions (A1 and A2) containing the same quantity of liquid (as indicated by the levels).

• The contents of A2 are then poured into two smaller containers of equal dimensions (B1 and B2) and the child to asked to whether the quantity of liquid poured from A2 to into (B1 + B2) is still equal to that in A1.


Results

Age Urban Rural Estates

4-5 Years 0/5 0/5 0/5

5-6 Years 0/5 0/5 1/5

6-7 Years 1/5 0/5 1/5

7-8 Years 2/5 4/5 3/5April 10, 2023 11T.Mukunthan, SLAAS

Findings

• The Chi-Squared Test applied to compare the results of present study and jean Piaget’s Study. The P value is greater than 0.05.

• Therefore it can be concluded that there is no significance difference between both findings.


Findings

• Kruskal-Wills test applied for test the differences between the sectors.

• The P value is greater than 0.05. Therefore, there is no significant difference among the sectors for the Piaget’s liquid conservation task.


Conclusion

• The Jean Piaget’s conservation of liquid task is applicable in Sri lanka.

• There is no significant difference among the sectors for this task.


THANK YOU
