Dynamic adaptation of the Inventory of Piaget's Developmental Task (IPDT) and the application for children with low socioeconomic status

Abstract

<p id="p00010">Low socioeconomic status (SES) has an adverse effect on children’s cognitive development and academic achievement. The dynamic test is based on the concept of Vygotsky's “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD), which is an effective and necessary supplement to the conventional intelligence test. It can identify the cognitive potential especially for children with low SES, more comprehensively and accurately. This assessment can classify high-potential children who have not yet shown good cognitive performance but are likely to perform well through the intervention and assessment process. The domains of conservation and relations in the Inventory of Piaget’s Developmental Task (IPDT) have been proved to be applicable to children’s cognitive potential assessment in the lower grade of elementary school. Purpose of this study was to construct a dynamic test based on the representation, classification, and regulation domains of the IPDT in senior primary school children. Furthermore, the newly developed IPDT dynamic test was applied to the cognitive intervention study of low SES children to examine the improvement of cognitive ability and academic achievement of low SES children with different potentials after the inferential cognitive intervention. <p id="p00015">In order to evaluate the effectiveness of the dynamic test, ninety-one children in the fifth grade of a primary school were randomly selected as participants. The dynamic assessment consisted of four steps: pre-test, intervention, migration, and post-test, with each step having a set of questions. According to the theoretical basis and operation methods of the formulating intervention steps in the conservation and relations domains of IPDT, the intervention steps were divided into six levels, and the participants were prompted to answer step by step. The results showed that the passing rate of the participants increased with the interventional levels, indicating that the intervention was appropriate and effective at all levels. <p id="p00020">The study further distinguished the SES of 320 fifth-grade children from two primary schools, and evaluated children’s cognitive potentials through the adapted dynamic test of IPDT. Furthermore, the procedure of “pretest-inference cognitive intervention-posttest” was used to explore the cognitive changes and mathematical academic promotion of the low SES children with different potential. On the basis of controlling the pre-test scores, an ANCOVA was performed on the post-test scores of Raven’s inference test in children of different potential groups. The results showed that the post-test scores among the groups were significantly different. In the intervention group, the scores of the low SES children with high potentials were significantly higher than that of other three low SES groups, but withoutsignificant differences with the performance of middle SES children having high potentials. The post-test scores of math achievement also showed similar results. The scores of low SES children in control groups were significantly lower than those of middle SES children. In addition, the growth scores on Raven’s test of the two intervention groups were significantly higher than the other groups. <p id="p00025">In summary, according to the results of our research, two conclusions can be drawn: Firstly, the revised IPDT dynamic test in the domains of representation, classification, and regulation can effectively evaluate children’s cognitive potentials. Secondly, according to the revised IPDT dynamic test, it is inferred that cognitive intervention has different effects on low SES children with different potentials. After the intervention, children’s cognitive ability and math performance were improved in varying degrees. Low SES children with high potentials benefited more than children with low potential.