A New Application for Children's Websites: Providing a Context for Developing Concrete Operational Thinking Features (Classification, Seriation, Conservation and Reversibility) from the Perspective of Piaget's Theory

Document Type : Research Article

Authors

• Mehri Parirokh ¹
• Mohamad Ramin Naderi ²
• Hamidreza Aghamohammadian Sherbaf ³

¹ Associate Professor, Department of Library and Information Sciences, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

² Master's student in library and information sciences from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

³ Professor of Psychology Department of Ferdowsi University of Mashhad

10.22067/riis.v1i1.8170

Abstract

According to Jean Piaget, a child can construct and develop his cognition while interacting with objects and individuals. By providing interactive concrete objects, Children's websites can have educational and entertaining roles in children's congnitive development. Based on Piaget's, cognitive development consists of three stages. Since children at Concret Operational Stage (COS), i.e. 7-11 years old, are interested in using electronic and web-based devices, if websites provide concrete operationsl experiences and deal with thinking challenges, they are suitable tools for enhancing their congnitive development.
This paper attempts to investigate the extent to which the children's websites are capable of providing a context for developing concrete operational thinking abilities in children. A qualitative research was performed for this study. Survey and content analysis were methods of this study. Eleven Farsi websites and a sample of 30 English websites, which are selected through systematic random sampling from the list of "Great Websites for Children", are considered as population of this research. A check list was the instrument for data gathering. Four fundamental features of concrete operational thinking, i.e, Classification, Seriation (Ordering), Conservation and Reversibility, provide the basis for designing the checklist. The experts' ideas were investigated to ensure the validity of the checklist. Its reliability was controlled by a pretest.
Findings indicate that the children's websites are moderately capable in enhancing classification and conservation skills in children; they are not well designed in fostering seriation (ordering) and reversibility. It can be concluded that such tools are not well prepared to provide 7-11 aged children with the opportunity to develop their cognitive abilities.

Keywords

• Children's Websites
• Cognitive Development
• Concrete Operational Stage
• Classification
• Seriation (Ordering)
• Conservation
• Reversibility

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