Josue Gabriel Hernandez and Mitchka Morris Dr.

Aksoy

EDUC 2312

Term Paper

Piaget's Preoperational Stage Observation

Victim: Jeaninne Melgar


Age: 6 yr

Conservation Task: Liquid Experiment

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWn4Xy4aeZ8

The child we chose to observe was Jeaninne, Gabriel’s niece. Jeaninne is 6 years old which
puts her under the preoperational stage of development. According to John W. Santrock,
Piaget’s Preoperational stage from the stage of development theory is when a child begins to
represent the world with words and images. These words and images reflect increased symbolic
thinking and go beyond the connection of sensory information and physical action. In the video,
we began by asking Jeaninne if both small same-sized jars had an equal amount of purple fluid.
After some consideration, she found that both samel-sized jars had the same amount of liquid in
them. After that, we poured one of the jars into a bigger jar and asked her another question,
“Now, which one has more”. Jeaninne looked at the smaller and bigger jar and decided the
smaller jar had “more” liquid in it based on appearance. Her choice paralleled to Piaget’s
Preoperational stage, which does not include operational thought. Her decision was intuitive
rather than logical. In addition, we found that Jeaninne fits under the intuitive thought substage
where children are ranging from about ages four to seven years and begin to use primitive
reasoning. Based on Santrock’s definition, Jeaninne did express her decision about the smaller
jar having more liquid in a confident way, however she was not aware of how she knows what
she knows. Or better stated, she did not know the exact reason why the other one had more,
other than what her eyes and intuition told her.

Because Jeaninne answered irrationally, it only further supports Piaget’s theory. Conducting this
experiment, was useful as it sheds light to the belief that children in various younger age groups
think differently from adults. In this case, Jeaninne’s lack of conservation proves the liquid
stayed the same, despite the change in appearance (jars). She was unable to focus her
attention on the same amount of liquid and instead focused on the changing jar shape. Even
after the experiment ended, her mother tried to explain it is the same amount of liquid but it was
still obvious to Jeaninne that the “smaller” container had more liquid. She ends up justifying her
answer because of the height of the jar. Because she failed the conservation task, she is
Preoperational. Because she was unable to see her mother’s point of view when explaining why
both jars had equal amounts of liquid, she was exhibiting egocentrism, the inability to adopt her
mother’s perspective.