Training Conservation Through Symbolic Play: A Second Look

Abstract

GUTHRIE, KAREN, and HUDSON, LYNNE M. Training Conservation through Symbolic Play: A Second Look. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1979, 50, 1269-1271. This study is a partial replication and extension of research reported by Golomb and Cornelius in 1977, which used training in symbolic play to foster conservation in 4-year-olds. Using a more representative sample and multiple experimenters, training in the present study was significantly less effective than in the earlier research. The number of correct conservation judgments was small in both experimental and control groups, and an adequate justification for a correct judgment was given only once. These findings suggest that Golomb and Cornelius's results lack generalizability and may be confounded by an experimenter effect. The significance of symbolic play training was further qualified by the improved performance of the control group on a delayed posttest, which indicates that testing alone may be the more powerful contributor to the observed changes in conservation performance.