1.

0 Introduction to cognitive development theory

Swiss cognitive theorist, Jean Piagets cognitive development theory stated that
human infants do not start out as a cognitive beings but they build and refine psychological
structures through their perceptual and motor activities ( Berk, 2009). These structures are
organised ways of making sense of experience that permit them to adapt more effectively to
the environment. Children develop these structures actively by using current structures to
select and interpret experiences and modifies those structure to take into account more
subtle aspects of reality ( Berk, 2009 ). Piaget viewed children as discovering in which they
construct all knowledge about their world through their own activity. Piagets theory is
described as constructivist approach to cognitive development. He believed that cognitive
development developed in stages, that is sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete
operational stage and formal operational stage.
2.0 Survey on level of cognitive development of a child
The child I have selected for the survey is Ethan Tan, 8 years old. Based on Piagets
theory, he is now in concrete operational stage. As the name implies the concrete
operational stage of development can be defined as the stage of cognitive development in
which a child is capable of performing a variety of mental operations and thoughts using
concrete concepts. The activities that I have carried out on the child covers the ability of
conservation, classification and spatial reasoning.
2.1 Conservation
According to Piagets theory, children in concrete operational stage gain the ability of
conservation. Conservation is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity
when redistributed, its mass, number, volume or length would not be affected (Byrnes,
2008). One of the activities I have carried out on the child is the conservation of liquid. Two
glasses of water of the same size (Glass A and Glass B) were filled with the same amount of
water and were showed to the child. After that, the water in Glass A was poured into another
glass of taller in size in front of the child. When I asked Ethan which glass contains more
water, he said both glasses contain the same amount of water. I asked for his explanation
regarding his answer and he told me that the height of the water in glass A is shorter, but its
width is wider than glass B. When I further questioned him, he told me to pour the water from
the taller glass back into glass A to prove what he said was right. This shows that he actually
engages in decentration. When children are asked to compare the volume of water in two
glasses, it is their ability to decentrate that enables them to flexibly consider both the height
and the width of the glasses in arriving at their decision (Oswalt, 2010). This also shows

reversibility, the capacity to imagine the water being returned to the original container as
proof of conservation.
The next activity is conservation of solid quantity. I showed him two straws of same
length and put it in parallel. Then, I moved the second straw a few centimetre to the right. I
asked Ethan which straw is longer and he gave the answer that both straws are equal
length. The next activity is the conservation of number. Two rows of coins were put in parallel
with 5 coins in each row and both rows were arranged with identical space between each
coins. The second row of coins was then arranged with more width in between them. The
same question was asked whether which row contains more coins and he answered that
both rows contain the same number of coins.
In my opinion, Piagets theory is true because the result of the three activities I had
done to test Ethans ability of conservation is parallel to what Piaget had suggested, that is
children in concrete operational stage gained the ability to conserve. However, I think some
of the aspects of this conservation task will affects the workability of this theory. One of the
aspects is the language usage of the experimenter, which Siegal (2003) termed as
conversational confusion. Flavell (as cited in Green, Ford & Flamer, 1971) believes that it is
difficult to determine if the childs response in Piagets conservation tasks is really a display
of his understanding of conservation or merely a linguistic error in understanding. The next
aspect would be maybe the child is responding based on what the child believes the
experimenter would expect him to say or a trick question was presented.
2.2 Classification
According to Piagets theory, children gains the ability of classification in concrete
operational stage. In classification, children identifies the properties of categories, to relate
categories or classes to one another, and to use categorical information to solve problems
(McLeod, 2010). To carry out the activity, I gave Ethan a list of animals with its pictures and I
asked him to classify the animals given using the table provided into the groups of warmblooded animals and cold-blooded animals. Ethan managed to answer the question
precisely.
After that, I decided to adjust the level of the test. I wanted him to classify the same
animals given into groups of mammals, reptiles, amphibians, fish and birds. I had actually
explained to Ethan all those terms like mammals, reptiles and others because the language
of delivery of science subject in his school is Mandarin due to the KSSR curriculum that
caused he was not familiar with those terms in English. All Ethans answers were correct.
This is due to he had actually been exposed to these animals on text books by teachers and

his parents had actually brought him to zoo before which helped him in classifying the
animals.
In my opinion, Piagets theory is true that children are able to classify in concrete
operational stage. I think children like Ethan can actually do more than the primary stage of
classification, like the classification of animals into warm-blooded and cold-blooded group.
They can actually do tasks that requires more knowledge like what I have carried out, that is
asking Ethan to classify the animals according to its classes of vertebrates. This is due to
children nowadays have more chance for a wider exposure on different aspects of
knowledge. For instance, for the activities I have carried out, it could be due to their visit to
the zoo before, or they have seen programmes on television regarding animals and others.
2.3 Spatial reasoning
Piaget found that school-age childrens understanding of space is more accurate
than that of pre-schoolers (Berk, 2009). This indicates that children in concrete operational
stage gained spatial reasoning ability. Spatial reasoning is the ability to understand and
remember the spatial relations among objects. I requested Ethan to draw the directions from
his house to his school. He managed to draw the directions and the building that he will be
passing by from his house to his school without any helps. This shows that Piagets theory is
true that children in concrete operational stage gained spatial reasoning ability.
To adjust the level of my test, I gave him a picture of three dimensional object and I
requested him to select a two dimensional shape from the choices below that can be folded
into that three dimensional object shown. He was able to solve the question in the end after
taking some time to think. In my opinion, Ethan has gone further because he is just 8 years
old. I interviewed his parents for Ethans spatial reasoning ability and I knew Ethan goes to
Olympiad Mathematics class every weekend. This might be one of the reasons why he can
achieve more. Ethans father bought him puzzles when Ethan was small which helps in
stimulating his thinking and recently, his father bought a motorbike Lego (Figure 6) which is
higher in its difficultness, but Ethan managed to build it in the end by referring to the book of
instruction provided and some minor helps from his father. This proves that Vygotskys
theory is true. Vygotsky believed that childrens learning takes place within the zone of
proximal development which is a range of tasks too difficult for the child to do alone but
possible with the help of adults (Vygotsky, 1978).
3.0 Conclusion

In conclusion, Piagets cognitive development theory is applicable on children but

some modifications has to be done to make it higher in Ievel so that childrens knowledge
would not be underestimated.
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