Apprentissage De La Conservation Des Quantités Liquides Chez Des Enfants Rwandais Et Canadiens-Francais

Abstract

Abstract Three groups of 16 subjects (rural school Rwandese, rural unschooled Rwandese and urban school French-Canadian children), classified as preoperational on a pretest including eight tests of conservation, were trained on the conservation of liquid quantities by a method based on anticipation of levels and compensation of dimensions. It was found that a) the performance of all three groups, when compared with controls, was significantly higher on two successive post-tests (two months interval); b) the three groups did not differ from one another either in global scores on both post-tests or in number of training sessions required for learning; c) the types of justification were based predominantly on perceptual features and on identity in non-conservation and conservation judgments, respectively. Results are discussed mainly in terms of the kind of justifications given by the three groups, the relative effectiveness of the two types of training given, and the genuineness of the conservation induced.