An investigation into the distinction between identity conservation and equivalence conservation, as presented by Elkind (1967) was examined in the content area of solid continuous quantity. One group of subjects received the tasks as outlined by Elkind (Group I) while another group of subjects received modified versions of the tasks (Group II). Each conservation task was presented at two levels of transformation; moderate and extreme. In addition transitivity of solid continuous quantity was examined in relationship to conservation.
The sample consisted of 144 subjects; 48 Kindergarten, Grade one and Grade two students. Half of the subjects within each grade level were assigned to Group I, the other half was assigned to Group II. Within each group half of the children were male and half were female.
An analysis of variance performed on the conservation tasks indicated that identity and equivalence conservation were of equal difficulty. The main effects of Group and Age were significant and the interaction of Sex x Grade was significant. The criterion factor of judgment only vs. judgment plus explanation was found to have a significant effect, with more trials passed with a judgment only criterion. Data were scored according to two different procedures; oneyprocedure required that subjects be consistent in their answers in each phase of the task in order to receive non-zero scores. This procedure employed a three-point scale with values of 0, 1, and 2. The other procedure used a scale with values ranging from 0 to 6 inclusive. Subjects were given a point for each of the six questions answered correctly in the conservation tasks, regardless of the consistency of the answers. The method with the 0, 1, and 2 scale showed that' identity and equivalence
conservation were equally difficult, while the method which employed the 0-6 scale showed that identity was easier than equivalence. It was shown that the latter method yielded these results because of an artifact in the questions asked. Furthermore it was shown that scale scores which resulted from an application of the 0-6 scale were an ambiguous reflection of the level of concept attainment.
An analysis of variance was performed on the transitivity tasks. The main effects for Group and Age were significant. The transitivity tasks were significantly easier than all conservation tasks at all grade levels. The implications of this and the co-occurrence of identity and equivalence conservation were discussed in relation to Elkind's (1967) analysis. / Arts, Faculty of / Psychology, Department of / Graduate
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UBC/oai:circle.library.ubc.ca:2429/19963 |
| Date | January 1975 |
| Creators | Humphrey, Gary Keith |
| Source Sets | University of British Columbia |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Text, Thesis/Dissertation |
| Rights | For non-commercial purposes only, such as research, private study and education. Additional conditions apply, see Terms of Use https://open.library.ubc.ca/terms_of_use. |
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