Sensorimotor stage

The stage is highlighted by the child only taking in new information from his direct environment.

Children mainly learn through their visual and tactile skills. Children develop an understanding of

object permanence and basic counting abilities. The stage ends after a child is able to develop a

comprehensible language which may be understood and reciprocated by another human being.

Preoperational stage:

From the development of language until a child is able to develop logical processes, the student

is considered to be in the preoperational stage of cognitive development. Logical processes are

considered to be based on rational thinking in which objects and material maintain consistent

conditions. Children tend to increase their language abilities as well as symbolic thought and

reasoning. Children generally require materials and visual objects in order to symbolize and

generate new ideas and concepts. Teachers and parents should provide problem solving activities

for these children which require them to develop logical understanding. Students are not able to

reverse mathematical understanding and do not have a concept of conservation of volume, length,

or mass. Concrete operational stage. But they are not in the inceasant

Children at the third stage of cognitive development still require “hands-on” activities in order to

understand different concepts, but are starting to formulate abstract ideas. Students are able to

consider two and three dimensions at one time when considering properties of objects. Children

still require manipulatives in order to understand basic mathematical concepts, which is shown

throughout several studies relating to teaching elementary school mathematics (Baker & Beisel,

2001; Mistretta & Porzio, 2000; Moch, 2001; Ojose, 2008; Taylor-Cox, 2001; Van de Walle,

2007). But, it is cautioned that these manipulatives must be directly connected to the abstract

concepts taught in the mathematics classroom (McNeil, & Jarvin, 2007; McNeil, Uttal, Jarvin, &
Sternberg, 2009). Manipulatives may also be beneficial for children at the concrete operational

stage of cognitive development in other academic areas. Overall, children within this 12 stage still

require concrete materials to represent concepts/ideas, but they are able to develop indepth levels

of understanding of abstract ideas.

Formal operational stage:

The final stage of cognitive development is characterized by a child’s ability to make logical

arguments with reasoning skills with generalization and evaluation of knowledge. Children are

able to use only symbols to define and characterize mathematical equations. They are also able to

represent linguistic ideas symbolically by effectively incorporating metaphor and irony in writing.

Most children are no longer in elementary school when they move into formal operations. The

overall assumptions based on Piaget’s cognitive theory of development theory have revolved

around the student’s need for progressive and developmental educational experiences in the

elementary classroom. As children develop cognitively over time through various constructive

learning experiences, they are able to understand more complex and abstract tasks. Their ability to

comprehend more intangible and ethereal topics will be influenced by their life experiences both

within and outside the classroom environment. Students are able to comprehend more complex

tasks through concrete experiences which are the foundation to later stages of development. All

people are assumed to pass through each stage and are not able to “skip” any of the stages (Piaget

1952b; Woolfolk, 2007). Piagetian theory also defines stages are stable as cognitive development

changes over a long period of time (Kail, 2004). The participants involved in the study would be

generally moving from the concrete operational stage of cognitive development and into a formal

operational stage based on their level of school and age. There were not any formal cognitive

assessments given to the students in order to confirm the previous statement; it was assumed based
on the participants’ grade levels. The researcher took into consideration the participants’ cognitive

developmental levels when designing the study. Therefore the cognitive developmental stages of

the participants within the study are considered in the overall methodology.