Does repetition of the question influence children's performance in conservation tasks?

Abstract

Three experiments are reported which evaluate Rose & Blank's claim that repetition of the conservation question in the traditional conservation task is interpreted by the child as a cue to change his judgement. Experiment 1 indicated that repetition of the conservation question per se does not lead to a change of judgement in the child. Experiment 2 demonstrated that the facilitatory influence of Rose & Blank's one‐judgement procedure was specific to number conservation tasks. This procedure was found not to facilitate children's length, weight and liquid conservation responses. Experiment 3 found the one‐judgement procedure not to facilitate correct number conservation judgements in nursery children. These experiments suggest that Rose & Blank's original results were specific to the conservation task and age group they studied. The one‐judgement procedure would appear to promote counting in such tasks.

When Sociocognitive Transaction among Peers Fails: The Case of Misconceptions in Science

“…They were explained either by attention shift determined by differences between the two successive displays (Levin, Gilat, & Zelniker, 1980) or by adherence to conversational rules according to which a question repeated twice deserves different answers (Neilson, Dockrell, & McKechnie, 1983;Rose & Blank, 1974;Samuel & Bryant, 1984;Siegal, Waters, & Dinwiddy, 1988). Such phenomena were previously observed among young children, mostly those in preschool.…”

Young children heed advice selectively

“…However, it is noteworthy that preschoolers do not alter their quantity judgments if, in between making those judgments, they are not presented with the visible transformation of the array that is standard in Piagetian conservation experiments (Halford & Boyle, 1985). Thus, repetition of a quantity question does not in itself lead young children to alter their judgment (Neilson, Dockrell, & McKechnie, 1983). Still, repeated questioning cannot be entirely ruled out as a factor in the current design because in between the two questions children received the advice, and this might have had an analogous effect to visible transformations in conservation tasks.…”

Do Young Children Understand Conservation of Number?

“…On notransformation trials, a second judgment is requested after an interval without any transformation being performed. Neilson, Dockrell, and McKechnie (1983) have shown that repetition of the question per se does not influence children to change their judgments. If 3-4-year-olds have a tendency to give inconsistent judgments for any reason other than failure to interpret the transformation, they should show a similar level of consistency under both conditions.…”