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COMPETENCE AND PERFORMANCE VARIABLES IN THE ASSESSMENT OF FORMAL OPERATIONAL SKILLS
Author(s) -
SLATER A. M.,
KINGSTON DENISE J.
Publication year - 1981
Publication title -
british journal of educational psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.557
H-Index - 95
eISSN - 2044-8279
pISSN - 0007-0998
DOI - 10.1111/j.2044-8279.1981.tb02470.x
Subject(s) - competence (human resources) , psychology , value (mathematics) , affect (linguistics) , social psychology , cognitive psychology , mathematics education , statistics , mathematics , communication
S ummary . In two experiments seven‐year‐old children and university students were asked to judge the truth value of questions asked about the colour of counters that were either concealed in the experimenter's hand or shown to the subject. It was found that the children were able to demonstrate one of the major characteristics of formal operational thought, namely the ability to reason in terms of verbally stated hypotheses without reliance on direct, physical experience. Specifically, they were able to evaluate correctly questions whose truth value depended on their logical form rather than from empirical considerations. However, under slightly different testing conditions the students failed to answer the same questions correctly. Our results show that fluctuations in task demands can profoundly affect the manifestation in performance of a subject's underlying formal operational competence, and lend support to the view that some features of the later period are emerging during the concrete operations period.