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The ability of secondary school students to generalise and to imagine possibilities
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Type
Thesis
Author
Charles, Belinda
Supervisor
Tan, Wee Kiat
Abstract
This study of adolescent thinking in secondary school considers the involvement of the last two Piagetian stages and the transition from one to the other. The move from concrete operations to formal operations should be demonstrated by the emergence of operations hitherto not evident or evident only in a limited sense. In contrast to Piaget's Identity, Negation, Reciprocity, Correlativity grouping (INRC) and the propositional logic model which he postulated as the structures present in formal operations, this study will look into Acceptance of Lack of Closure (ALC) and Multiple Interacting Systems (MIS) as formulated by E Lunzer. ALC and MIS are seen in the light of alternative structures that appear in the thinking of adolescents.
The adolescents who takes the given content as decisive, who fails to or will not reconcile opposing conclusions, and who does not conceive of unstated possibilities, is performing a kind of "premature closure". In so doing, he is still controlled by concrete thinking. The adolescent, however, who takes account of all evidence, measures the inadequacy of such evidence and supplements it or acknowledges its lack from his store of general knowledge has shown greater tolerance for unclosed operations. He can withhold closing while he considers the different variables in the problem.
MIS, on the other hand, is closely bound with abstraction. When more than one system is involved, as in MIS, variables have no direct correspondence with objects or stipulated events. Instead, the adolescent reconstructs objects as variables according to perceived laws and then tests his hypothesis against alternatives. As such, the adolescent will see abstract statements and generalisations as more meaningful than statements of association and membership.
This study therefore focuses on students' ability to judge and the extent to which their judgment is guided by possibilities other than those given. The study also attempts to measure the preference of a student for more abstract and generalised statements rather than specific statements of incidental association.
The study is also undertaken to see if the two characteristics mentioned are developmental, and if so, whether the developmental trend differs in boys and girls. The study also attempts to see if this developmental trend has any relationship with home background, measured in terms of parents' educational level, and with academic achievement.
Use has been made of two instruments initially developed by E A Peel and refined by his research students in the School of Education, University of Birmingham. One of these instruments has been expanded and labelled in this study as the Test of Judgmental Ability. The TOJA, as it is referred to in the study, uses (a) fixed and (b) flexible responses on the students' part to measure their tendency towards quoting given circumstances or invoking other possibilities. The other instrument, the Sentence Preference Test (SPT) has been largely adopted from Peel and only modified for cultural references. This latter test gives students four types of statements ranging from the incidental to the abstract, and measures their preference of level of generality by their choice.
Both tests have been intended for estimating the tolerance secondary school students have towards lack of closure in verbal situations and their degree of preference for abstract as opposed to concrete terms.
The adolescents who takes the given content as decisive, who fails to or will not reconcile opposing conclusions, and who does not conceive of unstated possibilities, is performing a kind of "premature closure". In so doing, he is still controlled by concrete thinking. The adolescent, however, who takes account of all evidence, measures the inadequacy of such evidence and supplements it or acknowledges its lack from his store of general knowledge has shown greater tolerance for unclosed operations. He can withhold closing while he considers the different variables in the problem.
MIS, on the other hand, is closely bound with abstraction. When more than one system is involved, as in MIS, variables have no direct correspondence with objects or stipulated events. Instead, the adolescent reconstructs objects as variables according to perceived laws and then tests his hypothesis against alternatives. As such, the adolescent will see abstract statements and generalisations as more meaningful than statements of association and membership.
This study therefore focuses on students' ability to judge and the extent to which their judgment is guided by possibilities other than those given. The study also attempts to measure the preference of a student for more abstract and generalised statements rather than specific statements of incidental association.
The study is also undertaken to see if the two characteristics mentioned are developmental, and if so, whether the developmental trend differs in boys and girls. The study also attempts to see if this developmental trend has any relationship with home background, measured in terms of parents' educational level, and with academic achievement.
Use has been made of two instruments initially developed by E A Peel and refined by his research students in the School of Education, University of Birmingham. One of these instruments has been expanded and labelled in this study as the Test of Judgmental Ability. The TOJA, as it is referred to in the study, uses (a) fixed and (b) flexible responses on the students' part to measure their tendency towards quoting given circumstances or invoking other possibilities. The other instrument, the Sentence Preference Test (SPT) has been largely adopted from Peel and only modified for cultural references. This latter test gives students four types of statements ranging from the incidental to the abstract, and measures their preference of level of generality by their choice.
Both tests have been intended for estimating the tolerance secondary school students have towards lack of closure in verbal situations and their degree of preference for abstract as opposed to concrete terms.
Date Issued
1987
Call Number
BF311 Cha
Date Submitted
1987