Nonverbal assessment of Piagetian concepts.

Miller, Scott A.

doi:10.1037/0033-2909.83.3.405

Cited by 63 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…As a result of these methodological considerations, the trend in cognitive-developmental psychology has been to ignore children's verbal justifications more or less entirely and to focus instead on judgments only or on various "nonverbal" assessment procedures (Braine, 1959;Brainerd, 1973;Siegel, 1978). Unfortunately, the results obtained through such procedures have been subject to interpretive ambiguities of their own (Larsen, 1977;Miller, 1976).…”

Section: Reinterpreting Previous Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For these reasons, investigators have attempted to infer the character of children's cognitive processes through a variety of indirect, nonverbal methods (Braine, 1959;Brainerd, 1973;Siegel, 1978). However, the use of such methods has been questioned on the grounds that they might not measure what they were intended to measure originally (Larsen, 1977;Miller, 1976).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Transitivity judgments, memory for premises, and models of children's reasoning*1

Chapman

Lindenberger

1992

Developmental Review

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A distributional model of the relation between judgments on transitivity tasks and memory for premise comparisons is proposed, according to which a total population of children solving a transitivity task can be divided into two subpopulations: (a) The operational subpopulation consists of all children who infer their transitivity judgments (e.g., stick A is longer than stick C) from a composition of premise relations (A is longer than B and B is longer than C); (b) the nonoperational subpopulation consists of all children who infer their transitivity judgments in some other way. In the operational subpopulation, memory for premises should be accurate (because operational composition of premise comparisons depends on the retention of those premises), and transitivity judgments should be correct (because operational composition leads to a correct judgment "by necessity"). In the nonoperational subpopulation, memory for premises should be stochastically independent of transitivity judgments. The assumptions of this distributional model are tested against data on transitive reasoning in 120 first, second, and third graders and found to be reasonable. From the distributional model, an equation is derived allowing the researcher to compute the minimum proportion of operational reasoners required to reject the null hypothesis of independence between judgments and memory in a sample drawn from a mixed (nonoperational + operational) population. Reports of reasoning-remembering independence in previous studies are reinterpreted in light of the present findings. Ever since the Greeks defined humankind as "the rational animal," the capacity for reasoning has been esteemed as a distinctive feature of human intelligence. In its broadest sense, "reasoning" refers to the explicit consideration of the reasons that can be adduced for believing, doing, or valuing one thing over another (Rescher, 1988). As such, it serves the related functions of decision making and ofjustifying the decisions which

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Section: Reinterpreting Previous Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Transitivity judgments, memory for premises, and models of children's reasoning*1

Chapman

Lindenberger

1992

Developmental Review

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“…On the other hand, this criticism has not gone unchallenged. Miller [1976] reviewed alternative ways of assessing Piagetian concepts and concluded that there was little evidence that most of them were attained earlier than Piaget had predicted. We will not attempt to cover this vast data base but will consider a few of the more important issues.…”

Section: Preschool Children's Thoughtmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reflections on 25 Years of Piagetian Cognitive Developmental Psychology, 1963–1988

Halford

1989

Human Development

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In this article some of the issues are examined that have arisen in one quarter of a century of intensive research on cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. It is suggested that there is no evidence clearly confirming the existence of Piaget’s cognitive structures in explicit form. Consequently, neo-Piagetian theories have proliferated, in an attempt to conceptualize the increasingly powerful cognitive systems that have been observed to develop with age. Research on the object concept indicates that children have knowledge and skills that would not have been predicted by the Piagetian position, but that children progressively develop an integrated conception of space that is consistent with some of Piaget’s basic tenets. Some of the major studies purportedly demonstrating understanding of concrete operational concepts by 3- and 4-year-olds are shown to be based on false positives. There is rigorous evidence of hypothesis testing in middle childhood, but this performance does not necessarily entail formal operations as defined by Inhelder and Piaget. It is concluded that Piaget’s empirical work has held up better than is often thought but that his conceptualization of cognitive development is inadequate. Consequently, it is suggested, empirical researchers should devote more attention to testing alternative theories.

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“…Accompanying this conceptual restructuring there have been a number of methodological reassessments (Halford, 1984;Miller, 1976;Perner, Steiner, & Staehelin, 1981;Silverman & Briga, 1981). One example is the conservation concept.…”

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confidence: 99%