Assessed the authenticity of conservation attainment through an observational learning paradigm. First grade children (N=60) were exposed to either a peer or adult model who was either present or absent during a series of tasks. No correlation was found between social influence and observational acquisition of conservation. (Author/JAC)

Conservation judgments are based on a combination of logical necessity and empirical belief. Results of two experiments support the view that the logical aspect of conservation is developmentally stable, while the empirical aspect varies widely across problems and individuals because of its dependence on relevant experience. (Author/RD)

A general theory of how children learn conservation concepts is presented. The acquisition process is described at an abstract level in terms of a rule-sampling system, implying a three-state Markov model with identifiable parameters. Three experiments testing the model's quantitative predictions about conservation learning experiments are…

Appraises the respective contribution of initial competence and of imitation of modeled response in the observational learning of conservation among first grade children. (HOD)

Two experiments were designed to investigate among kindergarten through third-grade children the development of character constancy -- the belief that other's or self's personality characteristics are stable across time and do not change despite changes in appearance. It is proposed that character constancy of self and other is a product of both…

This report describes the results of an attempt to identify a learning hierarchy for each of a number of science concepts mainly encountered first in the high school grades. The concepts studied relate to stoichiometric calculations and molarity, both from chemistry; to food web relationships and problems involving Mendel's laws from biology; to…

Describes a field study of kindergarteners which found 1,006 pupils conserved identity up to 8 months, and 693 pupils conserved identity and equivalence. Follow-up studies showed no relationship between kindergarten conservation abilities and grade 1 math skills, although grade 6 math performance correlated significantly with kindergarten…

The cutoff method was used on longitudinal data in more than one content domain in a study attempting to determine whether the effects of schooling are general or limited. Conservation of number, an informally acquired skill, and mental addition, a formally acquired skill, were evaluated among older kindergarten children, younger 1st-grade…