| dc.description.abstract | The main purposes of this study were: (1) to investigate the
effectiveness of training methods and materials in the acquisition of the
class inclusion concept, among five- and six-year old kindergarten and grade
one children; (2) to examine the nature of young children's understanding,
retention, and transfer of this logical ability; and (3) to examine the
results in light of a cross-cultural framework which may have potential in
interpreting responses from children in a different culture, socioeconomic
level or simply a different setting.
Piaget's theory indicates that the logic of classes and hierarchies
is incomprehensible to preoperational children ~nti1 they have the
abil ity to use the logical quantifiers "all" and "some". Subjects in this
study were required to have reached the appropriate stage of "all" and
"some" in a pretest designed for that purpose. A second pretest using
Piaget's classic class inclusion experiment with wooden beads was administered
to assess subjects' level of understanding class inclusion. Subjects
were required to show lack of class inclusion understanding via the second
pretest, in order to qualify for training. These two pretests were used
to select sixty subjects who understood "all" and "some" but did not understand
class inclusion. These subjects were then randomly assigned to six
treatment groups of ten subjects each, one of which was the control group.
Five training conditions were designed, which combined methods "'
and materials thus: self-discovery methods and concrete materials; se1fiv
discovery methods and pictorial materials; tutorial methods and concrete
materials; tutorial methods and pictorial materials; and verbal methods
and materials. The control group received no training. Treatment groups
received 10 to 30 minutes training designed to help them comprehend that
when subclasses A and AI additively compose the superordinate class B,
then B>A and B - AI = A. Four posttests from Immediate Transfer to One
Month Transfer were administered at approximate ten-day intervals after
training.
One-Way Analysis of Variance tests were carried out and significant
F ratios obtained between treatment groups and the control group.
Multiple comparisons of mean scores were carried out using the studentized
range statistic - Newman-Keuls method, and statistically significant
Q values obtained between each of the treatment groups and the control
group.
When each posttest was considered separately as a dependent variable,
there were no statistically significant differences among the means
of the treatment groups (materials), except that all treatment groups were
consistently superior to the control group. Similarly, there were no
statistically significant differences among the treatment groups (methods).
But, when all eight posttests were considered together as dependent
variables, there were consistent differences among the treatment groups
(materials) as the means for the groups were ranked by the eight posttests,
even when the control~roup was omitted. Specifically, concrete materials .
were consistently superior to pictorial materials. Similarly, tutorial
methods were consist~ntly superior to self~discovery methods.
The main findings of this study showed that the training program
was effective in inducing class inclusion among five- and six-year old
middle-class, urban, Alberta children, when the appropriate training techniques
were employed and when the appropriate stage of understanding lIallll
and IIsome IIhad been reached.
A significant finding of this study was the fact that the same
conclusions were reached when scores with and without justification were
used in the analyses. This finding has important implications for research
in cross-cultural settings in which inferences based on the verbal
ization of subjects' responses have led to biased results and erroneous
conclusions on lack of competence for cognitive reasoning.
These findings imply that the acquisition of class inclusion can
be accelerated if the appropriate conditions are present. The use of a
variety of materials and diverse teaching techniques in the classroom
setting are suggested. For the planned replication study in Kenya (Phase
II) less emphasis will be laid on the verbal justification criterion, but
the use of concrete and familiar materials will be emphasized. | en |
