The effect of direct experience with objects on middle class, culturally diverse, and visually impaired young children

Abstract

Abstract Piaget's theory of equilibration is investigated by comparing the effect of direct experience with objects on the logical reasoning ability of middle class (MC), culturally diverse (CD), and visually impaired (VI) children. In experiment 1 a Piagetian task with floating and sinking objects was used to compare the classificatory ability of MC, CD, and VI groups of children studying SCIS Material Objects with those who had not studied the unit. Experimental CD and VI children performed significantly better on the task than CD and VI controls; no significant differences were found between MC experimentals and controls. MC groups performed better than CD and VI groups in both experimental and control conditions. Experiment 2 measured students' ability to name properties and materials and to sort objects. It was found that both MC and VI subjects improved in ability to describe objects and sort them using a descriptor of their own choice. Further, there were no differences between MC and VI subjects on these tasks after they had studied Material Objects .