| dc.description.abstract | The aim of this study was to investigate some
variables that influence the acquisition of the concepts of
length, area, and internal volume. Precisely, the effect of
age as measured by grade, and sex were studiedo The study
also attempted to find out whether length, area, and internal
volume conservation were mastered concurrently.
The sample used for this study consisted of 15 boys
and 15 girls from each of standards one, three, five and
seven, making a total of 120 subjects in all. These children
ranged in age from six to fifteen years. •. All of the subjects
attended a rural primary school in Kiambu District.
The conservation of area tasks were administered
first, followed by length and internal volumeo All the tasks
were administered by the investigator herself in Kikuyu language.
The tasks were given individually, to all the subjects in
September and October, 1973.
Based on Piaget's line of theorizing, it was predicted
that:
(i) Older children in higher grades (standard 5 and 7)
would perform better on these conservation tasks than
youngerchildren in lower grades (standards 1 and 3).
"' (ii) Conservation of the three geometrical concepts
would be concurrent.
(iii) Boys would perform better than girls in all
grades
The obtained results indicated that older children
performed significantly better than younger children, boys
performed significantly better than girls, and finally, length
was found to be an earlier acquisition than area and internal
volume among girls. Among boys on the other hand, length
was only an earlier acquisition than internal volume. For
both groups of boys and girls, area and internal volume
were mastered at the same time. Thus, the hypotheses that older
children would perform better than younger children and that
boys would perform better than girls were confirmed. There was
little support for the hypothesis that length, area and internal
volume would be mastered concurrently. | en |
