Origin and Description of the SOLO Taxonomy

Learning quality depends on features outside the learner such as the quality of the instruction itself and on the features intrinsic to the learner such as his motivation, his developmental stage, his prior knowledge of the area, and so forth. This chapter explores the basis for discriminating between responses of different quality. It discusses the Piagetian stages of development. In the preoperational stage, that is, at the age of 4 to 6 years, the thoughts are illogical and confused. The associations are made on the basis of emotion, personal preference, and an egocentric view of the world. In the early concrete stage of 7–9 years, the child can utilize one relevant operation. In the middle concrete stage, the child can think by using several relevant operations. The child acquires the concepts of conservation, transitivity, and reversibility, therefore, laying the basis for proper logical functioning. According to Piaget, the stage of concrete generalizations contains the elements of abstract thinking.