Development of Conservation (AQA GCSE Psychology): Revision Note
Exam code: 8182
Piaget's study of conservation
Conservation refers to the ability to understand that the properties (particularly the quantity) of a material have not changed simply because it looks different from how it appeared when first presented
Children in the pre-operational stage are (according to Piaget) unable to ‘conserve’ (i.e. hold in their minds) the appearance of a material pre-transformation
In other words, if a lump of clay is transformed into a different shape (e.g. flattened out) the child may say that there is more/less clay than when the clay was first presented (even though the amount of clay has not changed)
Piaget tested conservation using experimental methodology as follows:
The child is shown the material (liquid = conservation of volume; clay = conservation of mass; coins = conservation of number) in the same quantity side by side e.g. two identical lumps of clay
The child is asked ‘Does this one (lump of clay A) have more, does this one (lump of clay B) have more or do they both have the same?’
One of the items (e.g. one of the lumps of clay) is transformed while the child is watching, by the researcher changing its appearance (e.g. pouring liquid into a different-sized container or flattening a lump of clay)
The child is asked for the second time, ‘Does this one have more, does this one have more or do they both have the same?’
If the child answers by saying that one of the materials now has more/less after the transformation they have failed the conservation task
If the child answers by saying that both materials are the same after the transformation they have passed the conservation task
Saying that one of the materials now has more/less fails the conservation task because it shows that the child's thinking lacks maturity as it focuses on appearance at the expense of logic
The conservation task tests a key developmental milestone in children as to pass the child must be able to see both materials as the same even when the transformed appearance of one of them makes them look as if they have different properties
Examiner Tips and Tricks
It is important to take time to understand the conservation tasks as you may need to describe/explain/evaluate them in the exam. If you can think of the term ‘conserve’ as ‘holding onto an idea/image in your head’ then hopefully this will help you to untangle the sometimes knotty nature of Piaget’s experiments. The fact that conservation tasks take some figuring out is a good AO3 point: if adults struggle to get to grips with them then what chance do children have?
McGarrigle & Donaldson’s ‘naughty teddy’ study
McGarrigle & Donaldson (1974) devised this re-working of a classic Piaget-type conservation experiment
The reason behind the re-working of the procedure is that the researchers felt that the transformation of the material by an adult may have triggered a demand characteristic in the child:
‘This grown-up is doing something to one of the objects so they must be changing it somehow’
In short, the child may have out-thought the conservation task by reasoning about the intentions of the adult i.e. more sophisticated thinking than Piaget gave them credit for!
The researchers altered the procedure so that the transformation looked as if it was accidental - the work of a naughty teddy:
80 children from Edinburgh aged 4 years 10 months to 5 years 10 months old comprised the sample
There were two conditions of the IV:
The control condition which consisted of the classic Piaget-type conservation task
The other condition was the experimental condition in which a glove puppet (naughty teddy) ‘escaped’ from his box and messed around with the material e.g. he re-arranged a line of counters so that one row looked smaller than the other
The children were asked the question, ‘Does this one have more, does this one have more or do they both have the same?’
62% of children in the ‘naughty teddy’ condition passed the conservation task i.e. said that both rows had the same number of counters compared to only 16% of children in the control condition
The researchers concluded that Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of children in the pre-operational stage
Examiner Tips and Tricks
McGarrigle & Donaldson (1974) is a NAMED STUDY on the AQA specification which means that you could be asked a specific question on it.
Evaluation of conservation
Strengths
Conservation tasks are easy to replicate which means that they can be tested for reliability
McGarrigle & Donaldson (1974): Introducing the fun element of the teddy (which the children could relate to) increases the validity of their procedure over the rather abstract nature of Piaget’s original
Weaknesses
Moore (1986) has suggested that the children in the ‘naughty teddy’ condition were distracted by the teddy and did not notice that the transformation had taken place
The children were all from Edinburgh which makes the results difficult to generalise
Worked Example
Here is an example of a question you might be asked on this topic - for AO1 and AO3.
AO1: You need to demonstrate knowledge and understanding of key concepts, ideas, theories and research.
AO3: You need to analyse and evaluate key concepts, ideas, theories and research.
After each featured question there is a ‘model’ answer i.e. one which would achieve top marks in the exam.
Question: Identify and explain one criticism of McGarrigle & Donaldson’s (1974) ‘naughty teddy’ study. [4]
AO1 = 1 mark
AO3 = 3 marks
AO1 - Identify one criticism of McGarrigle & Donaldson’s (1974) ‘naughty teddy’ study.
Model answer:
One criticism of McGarrigle & Dongaldson’s (1974) ‘naughty teddy’ study is that the children in the ‘naughty teddy’ condition may have been distracted by the teddy.
AO3 - Explain one criticism of McGarrigle & Donaldson’s (1974) ‘naughty teddy’ study.
If the children were distracted by the teddy and did not notice that the transformation had taken place then this invalidates the results as they were not aware of the counters being moved around.
If the children did not see the transformation then they may not have realised that a change had taken place, thus they were not ‘conserving’ the image/concept of the two rows of counters appearing different from when they were first presented to them.
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