1. What did Piaget mean when he said that the preoperational child "lacked conservation"?
Piaget meant that a child does not understand that the properties of an object remain constant even though the physical appearance may have changed. For example, 1L of water in a glass of a diameter of 5cm is equal to 1L of water in a glass whose diameter is 10cm even though they may have seen it being poured out of the same container into the glasses. A child lacks operations to manipulate the idea that the water’s properties are conserved and the amount is the same. Rather, he/ she will see that the water which rises higher in the glass is ...
