A Developmentally Based Theory and Technology of Instruction

Two of the most widely documented principles that have emerged from the study of intellectual development are (a) that young children approach intellectual tasks with strategies that are reasonable but oversimplified and (b) that young children are incapable of dealing with more than a few items of information at one time. Table 1 presents a description of the strategies that young children use to solve three different Piagetian tasks. Consider first the task where the child is presented with two beakers of water, and asked to judge which contains the greater amount to drink (Piaget, 1957). The 5-year old strategy on this task may be characterized as follows: "Estimate the height of the first beaker. Estimate the height of the second beaker. Choose the beaker with the taller column of liquid." This is, of course, a very reasonable strategy and one that would probably work most of the time at home or at school, where drinking water would be offered in glasses of equal diameter. Consider next a task called the Orange Juice Problem (Noelting, Note 1). On this task, children are presented with two small sets of cups, some of which are filled with water, and some of which are filled with orange concentrate. They are asked which set will form a mixture that tastes more strongly of orange juice. The 5-year old strategy on this task may be characterized as follows. "Count the number of orange-concentrate cups in the first set. Count the number of orange-concentrate cups in the second set. Choose