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Chemical Education and PiagetA new paper-pencil inventory to assess cognitive functioningThe widely accepted theory of intellectual development proposed by Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget has been a major influence on education in the last decade. Public school educators have altered their curricula and instructional techniques to make them more appropriate to their students' cognitive limitations as described by Piaget. On the college level, educators have considered Piaget's theory inapplicable.Piaget asserted that children enter their final, abstract level of reasoning (formal operations) with adolescence, so college students were assumed to have completed their intellectual development.Recently, however, numerous studies have disproved this assumption by consistently finding that about 50% of college freshmen are not able to use mature, abstract reasoning and therefore have not completed their cognitive development, e.g.

Although science educators conversant with Piaget's work have recognized the importance of adapting instruction and curricula to the cognitive level of their students, such attempts have been dif ficult because of a lack of appropriate cognitive as sessment instruments. To meet such a need, a com prehensive, objective paper-and-pencil inventory was investigated using 542 subjects, 8 years through adulthood, in order to determine its usefulness for normal and retarded students. The results showed that the inventory was acceptably reliable and valid and had advantages over other Piaget tests. With some suggested improvements, it was concluded that the instrument had potential as an educational and theoretical research tool.