Piaget and the Pendulum

Bond, Trevor G. (2004) Piaget and the Pendulum. Science and Education, 13 (4-5). pp. 389-399.

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Abstract

Piaget''s investigations into children''s understanding of the laws governing the movement of a simple pendulum were first reported in 1955 as part of a report into how children''s knowledge of the physical world changes during development. Chapter 4 of Inhelder & Piaget (1955/1958) entitled `The Oscillation of a Pendulum and the Operations of Exclusion'' demonstrated how adolescents could construct the experimental strategies necessary to isolate each of the variables, exclude the irrelevant factors and conclude concerning the causal role of length. This became one of the most easily replicable tasks from the Genevan school and was used in a number of important investigations to detect the onset of formal operational thinking. While it seems that the pendulum investigation fits nicely into Piaget''s sequence of studies of concepts such as time, distance and speed suggested to him by Einstein, more recent research (Bond 2001) shows Inhelder to be directly responsible for the investigations into children''s induction of physical laws. The inter-relationship between the pendulum problem, developing thought and scientific method is revealed in a number of Genevan and post-Piagetian investigations.

Item ID: 7122
Item Type: Article (Research - C1)
ISSN: 1573-1901
Keywords: Cognitive Development; Piaget; Cognitive development - Piaget; Inhelder; genetic epistemology; ceteris paribus; experimental method; induction; formal operations; science education
Date Deposited: 06 Apr 2010 02:23
FoR Codes: 13 EDUCATION > 1303 Specialist Studies in Education > 130399 Specialist Studies in Education not elsewhere classified @ 80%
13 EDUCATION > 1302 Curriculum and Pedagogy > 130212 Science, Technology and Engineering Curriculum and Pedagogy @ 20%
SEO Codes: 93 EDUCATION AND TRAINING > 9399 Other Education and Training > 939999 Education and Training not elsewhere classified @ 100%
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