Interaction and instruction in the conservation experiment |
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Authors: | Ed Elbers |
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Affiliation: | 1. Faculty of Social Science, Department of Psychonomics, University of Utrecht, Heidelberglaan 2, 3584 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands
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Abstract: | Though there has been considerable research in recent years into the ways in which children’s performance in conservation experiments is affected by the context of interaction, this has so far lacked a coherent theoretical basis. In this article, concepts from communication theory are applied to the behaviour of experimenter and subject in the experimental situation. It is argued that the child behaves according to the «metacontract» of a teacher-pupil interaction, i.e. he or she expects to receive instruction. In the classical conservation experiment of Piaget, these expectations are thwarted, because the experimenter does not conform to the rules of a teacher-pupil relationship. Instead, the experimenter follows the rules of a different metacontract—that of examination. In experiments where conservation abilities are taught, and in group interactions where conserving children cooperate with non-conserving children, the participants do behave according to the same metacontract. But the value of these studies is reduced by the exclusive attention paid to the eventual achievements of the child, instead of the cognitive processes during the learning phase. |
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