Premium
The performance of college students on piaget‐type tasks dealing with distance, time, and speed
Author(s) -
Poduska Ervin,
Phillips Darrell G.
Publication year - 1986
Publication title -
journal of research in science teaching
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.067
H-Index - 131
eISSN - 1098-2736
pISSN - 0022-4308
DOI - 10.1002/tea.3660230908
Subject(s) - task (project management) , psychology , set (abstract data type) , mathematics education , test (biology) , science education , piaget's theory of cognitive development , cognitive psychology , cognition , arithmetic , mathematics , cognitive development , computer science , paleontology , management , economics , biology , programming language , neuroscience
Research was done to probe and extend Piaget's theory of the conception of speed. Specifically tested was the hypothesis that there is no hierarchical relationship in performance on the following Piaget‐type tasks: conservation of distance, asymmetric series of speeds, one‐to‐many (circular) speeds, symmetric speeds, time, and proportional reasoning. The research also tested the gender‐related performance on these six tasks. One hundred freshman and sophomore college students were shown demonstrations of equipment individually for each of the six tasks. A set of open‐ended questions based on the demonstrations was administered to each subject in a 45‐minute interview. Subjects were scored as “pass” on a given task if they manipulated objects in certain ways and gave specific types of explanations. A scalogram analysis of the data yielded a z ‐score of — 3.7 which indicated that subjects passed the task in a certain sequence. The tasks were found to form a unidimensional scale and to be increasingly difficult in the order listed above. A chi‐square test for two independent samples showed a significant difference (alpha = 0.05) in performance between males and females on all speed tasks. No significant differences in performance between males and females were found for the distance and time tasks.