Rachelle Hayes

Piagetian Tasks
Assessment 2.2

Educational
Psychology
EDS 3200

September 9, 2002
 For this assignment, I chose to interview two children. I performed the tasks on a child

of almost six years old and another child who is thirteen years old.

On Thursday, August 29, 2002, I performed the tasks on a child who is almost six years

old. His name is Gary Douglas Savil Reed and he is the son of another teacher at the

Community College of Aurora. He is a gifted student who attends Woods Adventist School in

Aurora. He is only in Kindergarten, but can do second grade work in both reading and

mathematics. This experiment was performed in Denver, Colorado, at Gary’s home, in his own

room. I felt that would make him more comfortable with the situation. His room is upstairs in a

2 bedroom, 1 ½ bathroom town home.

I performed the experiment from page 35 of our book on Gary first. For the first task, I

had two glasses. Both were the same size and both were clear pink glasses that you could see

through. Both glasses had the same amount of water in them. I asked Gary, “Is there the same

amount of water in each glass?” Gary responded with, “Yes, because the glasses are the same

size.” I then had Gary hide in the closet while I dumped the water from one glass into the

bottom part of a tupperware, see through bowl. After I told Gary he could come back out, I

asked him, “Now, is there the same amount of water in each one, or does one have more?” Gary

responded with, “No, there is more water in the glass.” I asked him, “Why?” He stated, “If I

poured the amount of water in the glass into the empty Tupperware bowl, the bowl would be

completely full of water.” I then proceeded to begin the second task on page 35.

For this task, since I did not have any clay, I had to use PlayDoh. I used pink balls of

PlayDoh, as that was the only thing I had that was closest to clay. So I took out the PlayDoh and

cut it in half. Then I rolled the PlayDoh into two balls. Gary was not in the room when I did

this, as I came to his house prepared with the PlayDoh already rolled into two balls. When I got
the two balls of PlayDoh out, I asked Gary, “Is there the same amount of PlayDoh in each ball?”

Gary responded with, “Yes, because they are both pink.” I then had Gary go back into the closet

and flattened one of the pieces of PlayDoh. After having him come out, I then asked him, “Now

does each piece have the same amount of PlayDoh, or does one have more?” Gary responded

with, “No, they do not.” I then asked him, “Why?” He said, “Because one of the pieces of

PlayDoh is flat, so you would have to put an X on it, which means they’re not the same. One is a

ball and the other is flat, that means they are not the same size.” I was curious as to why Gary

said anything about “an X,” which had nothing to do with the problem. So I later asked his father

about it. His father said that Gary obviously thought of it as a matching game, which they do in

school, and since one wasn’t the same shape as the other, they “X” it out, since it doesn’t match.

I then was ready for the third task on page 35.

For this task, I basically copied the pictures in color from the Woolfolk CD. I blew them

up, so that each set of pictures took up half the piece of paper. Then I cut the paper in half. I

showed Gary the first picture of the cows and I asked him, “Does each of these two cows have

the same amount of grass to eat?” He responded with, “Yes because the amount of grassland is

the same.” I then showed Gary the second picture of the cows and asked him, “Now does each

cow have the same amount of grass to eat, or does one cow have more?” Gary replied, “No,

you’d have to put the squares back together and then the cows would have the same amount of

grass to eat.” It was at this point that I turned my attention to the formal operational task in the

book on page 39.

For this task, I had to alter it a bit. I did not have a polo shirt and I did not have a bomber

jacket. So for this task, I used the following clothes: (1) three tops-T-shirt with pocket, T-shirt

without pocket, and dress shirt, (2) three pairs of pants-jeans, shorts, slacks, and, (3) three
jackets-a blazer, jeans jacket and a sports jacket. But I laid the clothes out in the three different

categories on Gary’s bed, so he could see each of the clothes. I explained to him what each of

the clothes were and what categories they were in. Then I asked him, “How many different

outfits can be made with the following clothes?” Gary replies, “Three outfits can be made

because all of the shirts are the same and all of the pants are the same and all of the jackets are

the same.” This concluded the tasks with Gary. After these tasks were completed, because Gary

is so young, I discussed the results with his parents and they were very pleased. I also thanked

them for allowing me to have Gary participate in this “experiment,” and then I took them out to

dinner as a reward and way of thanking them.

On Saturday, August 31, 2002, I performed the tasks on a child who is thirteen years old.

His name is Matthew Evans and he is my half-brother. He is a gifted and talented student in the

eighth grade at West Middle School in the Cherry Creek School District. He is in the advanced

program there and is taking Geometry. This experiment was performed in Centennial, Colorado,

at Matt’s home, on the dining room table near the kitchen.

I began by performing the experiment on page 35 of our book on Matt first. For the first

task, I had two glasses. Both were the same size and both were clear blue glasses that you could

see through. Both glasses had the same amount of water in them. I asked Matt, “Is there the

same amount of water in each glass?” Matt responded with, “No.” I was a little surprised at this

response, so I asked him, “Why?” Matt stated, “You can’t really assume anything because it

really could have more or less in one glass than the other, it depends on how you look at it.” I

then had Matt go into another room while I dumped the water from one glass into the bottom part

of a white bowl. After I told Matt he could come back, I asked him, “Now, is there the same

amount of water in each one, or does one have more?” Matt responded with, “It is too hard to
tell. They’re not the same shape, so unless you measure it, you won’t be able to tell or not. They

may or may not have the same amount of water in them.” I then proceeded to begin the second

task on page 35.

For this task, since I again did not have any clay, I had to improvise. I could not find my

PlayDoh, so I had to figure out something else to use. I ended up using two things of Silly Putty

that were my sister Katie’s. One of the silly putty’s was purple, the other was green, but that was

the best I could do at this time. So I took out the Silly Putty’s and rolled them into two balls of

equal size. Matt was not in the room when I did this. When I got the two balls of Silly Putty

ready, I had Matt come back into the room and asked him, “Is there the same amount of Silly

Putty in each ball?” Matt responded with, “Yes, because they started out the same size and they

don’t seem to be mixed at all.” I then had Matt leave the room and flattened the purple piece of

Silly Putty. After having Matt come back, I asked him, “Now does each piece have the same

amount of Silly Putty, or does one have more?” Matt responded with, “Yes, most likely they do,

if they haven’t been mixed.” I then was ready for the third task on page 35.

For this task, I used the same copies of the pictures in color from the Woolfolk CD that I

had used with Gary. I showed Matt the first picture of the cows and I asked him, “Does each of

these two cows have the same amount of grass to eat?” He responded with, “No, because the

cow on the right has a little bit wider of squares in the center.” I then showed Matt the second

picture of the cows and asked him, “Now does each cow have the same amount of grass to eat, or

does one cow have more?” Matt replied, “Yes because the cow on the right has eight squares of

grassland to eat, they’re just spaced apart differently. The cow on the left also has eight squares

of grassland to eat, they’re just closer together.” It was at this point that I turned my attention to

the formal operational task in the book on page 39.

 For this task, I used the same sets of clothes that I had used for Gary. I again did not

have a polo shirt or a bomber jacket. So I used the following clothes: (1) three tops-T-shirt with

pocket, T-shirt without pocket, and dress shirt, (2) three pairs of pants-jeans, shorts, slacks, and,

(3) three jackets-a blazer, jeans jacket and a sports jacket. But I laid the clothes out in the three

different categories on Gary’s bed, so he could see each of the clothes. I explained to him what

each of the clothes were and what categories they were in. Then I asked him, “How many

different outfits can be made with the following clothes?” At first, Matt replied, “9.” Then when

I asked him why, he said, “No, wait.” He took a few minutes and then replies, “27 outfits can be

made because if you mix them up, you have just the pants and shirts and combine them all, and

that makes nine choices. Then when you have to have a jacket as well, you would multiply nine

by three to get 27 total possible outfits.” This concluded the tasks with Matt. After these tasks

were completed, I thanked Matt for helping me and I discussed the results with his parents and

they were very pleased. I told them I was surprised by some of the responses, but they were

perfectly good responses for a gifted child, such as himself. I also thanked them for allowing me

to have Matt participate in this “experiment.”

Based upon the information I gathered, I believe that Gary is somewhat into the concrete

operational stage and Matt is definitely in the Formal Operational Stage of development. I

believe that my slightly small alterations to the experiment might have only hurt the results

regarding the clay. I believe Gary’s response would have been different if I had used PlayDoh of

different colors, and I believe Matt’s response would have been different if I had come prepared

with modeling clay, or at least something that he had not seen before. However, I believe the

other results would not have been any different, if I had used the exact same things as in the

pictures.
 I did not use average children for this experiment, because I didn’t feel comfortable going

out and finding just an “ordinary child” to do the experiments on. I chose to use children I knew

I could trust because I felt their responses would be more genuine than finding children I did not

know. I feel that because they were gifted, my results will end up being different than the results

of other students in the course. If I had interviewed just the “average” student in those age

groups, then the younger child would most likely not have mastered the concrete-operational

concepts and the older child may or may not have mastered the formal operational concept.

However, being a math teacher myself, I believe that the only children who could master the

formal operational concept presented here are students who have had experience with

combinatorics in probability. The task presented on page 39 was a task that would involve

knowledge not only of general multiplication, but of probability concepts as well.

I feel that my results confirm the fact that Gary and Matt are both very gifted for their

age. For Gary, his responses were very in depth and were not just yes and no type answers.

When asked why he responded the way he did, I believe that the average child would have

trouble stating why they responded that way. They’d probably say, “I don’t know,” or, “That’s

just the way it is.” However, Gary went into a lot of depth in his responses and they were

certainly valid responses for a child his age. This is why I feel he has mastered some concrete-

operational concepts, which are normally not mastered until a child is between eight and

fourteen. Gary is only six and he has mastered some of these concepts already. For Matt, his

responses were not only in depth, but were certainly more tailored to a response that an average

child could not come up with. The average child Matt’s age would probably have responded

with yes to each one of the concepts on page 35 and may or may not have responded with the

correct answer to the task on page 39. However, Matt went into much more depth with his
answers and I feel that they are not only valid, but are very true. I feel this experiment was a

good experience for all parties involved and I feel I learned more about the different stages

children go through, from Piaget’s perspective.