10.3: Piaget concrete operational stage

Figure \(\PageIndex{1}\): Non-Western children studying in a classroom share some similarities and some differences with Western schoolrooms.[2]

The concrete operational stage is defined as the third in Piaget's theory of cognitive development. This stage takes place around 7 years old to 11 years of age, and is characterized by the development of organized and rational thinking. Piaget (1954a) considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child's cognitive development, because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought. The child is now mature enough to use logical thought or operations (i.e. rules) but can only apply logic to physical objects (hence concrete operational). Children gain the abilities of conservation (number, area, volume, orientation) and reversibility.[3]

Let’s look at the following cognitive skills that children typically master during Piaget’s concrete operational stage.[4] :

Figure \(\PageIndex{2}\): The cognitive skills developed during the concrete operational stage are seriation, classification, reversibility, conservation, decentering, identity, transitivity.[5]

Seriation:

Figure \(\PageIndex{3}\): Sorting these shapes from smallest to largest is seriation.[7]

Classification

As children's experiences and vocabularies grow, they build schema and are able to organize objects in many different ways. They also understand classification hierarchies and can arrange objects into a variety of classes and subclasses.

Figure \(\PageIndex{4}\): This child might use classification if she sorts these toys by color or by shape.[8]

Reversibility

The child learns that some things that have been changed can be returned to their original state. Water can be frozen and then thawed to become liquid again. But eggs cannot be unscrambled. Arithmetic operations are reversible as well: 2 + 3 = 5 and 5 – 3 = 2. Many of these cognitive skills are incorporated into the school's curriculum through mathematical problems and in worksheets about which situations are reversible or irreversible.

Figure \(\PageIndex{5}\): Understanding that ice cubes melt is an example of reversibility.[9]

Conservation

An example of the preoperational child’s thinking; if you were to fill a tall beaker with 8 ounces of water this child would think that it was "more" than a short, wide bowl filled with 8 ounces of water? Concrete operational children can understand the concept of conservation, which means that changing one quality (in this example, height or water level) can be compensated for by changes in another quality (width). Consequently, there is the same amount of water in each container, although one is taller and narrower and the other is shorter and wider.

Figure \(\PageIndex{6}\): Beakers displaying the idea of conservation.[10]

Decentration

Concrete operational children no longer focus on only one dimension of any object (such as the height of the glass) and instead consider the changes in other dimensions too (such as the width of the glass). This allows for conservation to occur.

Figure \(\PageIndex{7}\): Children looking at these glasses demonstrate decentration when looking at more than one attribute i.e. tall, short, and wide narrow.[11]

Identity

Figure \(\PageIndex{8}\): A broken egg is still an egg.[13]

Figure \(\PageIndex{9}\): A deflated balloon is still a balloon.[14]

Figure \(\PageIndex{10}\): Broken chalk is still chalk.[15]​​​​​​​

Transitivity

Figure \(\PageIndex{11}\): Transitivity allows children to understand that this boxer puppy, is a dog and a mammal.[17]

Attributions:

Child Growth and Development by Jennifer Paris, Antoinette Ricardo, and Dawn Rymond, 2019, is licensed under CC BY 4.0

[1] Educational Psychology by OpenStax CNX is licensed under CC BY 4.0

[2] Image is licensed under CC0

[3] Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[4] Concrete Operational Stage Image by Simply Psychology is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 3.0; Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[5] Image by Ian Joslin is licensed under CC BY 4.0

[6] Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[7] Image by MehreenH is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0

[8] Image is licensed under CC0

[9] Image by John Voo is licensed under CC BY 2.0

[10] Image by Ydolem2689 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

[11] Image by Waterlily16 is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0

[12] Lifespan Development: A Psychological Perspective by Martha Lally and Suzanne Valentine-French is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 3.0

[13] Image by John Liu is licensed under CC BY 2.0

[14] Image is licensed under CC0

[15] Image from Pexels

[17] Image by Martin Vorel is in the public domain