Concrete Operations Using mental schemata to understand and act on reality 7 to 11 years.
Formal Operations Using more abstract, flexible mental schemata to understand and act on reality 11 years and beyond.
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As you can see the fourth stage of the cognitive development theory is what Piaget's was studying when he designed the pendulum study. Piaget has broken down stage four, Formal Operations, into The Four Stages of Formal Reasoning. I would be inclined to say that the first stage of formal reasoning actually includes subjects who are not yet formal operators but are still concrete operators. At stage 4, the subject should be able to exclude factors and narrow it down to the correct answer, which is length of string.
METHOD.
A description of subjects.
Subject number one, is a female, age 45. She said she was raised in a family of six kids on welfare and therefore had low social economic status (SES). She said she liked school and received good grades in English but did poorly in math and science. She dropped out of school in grade 11, due to "family difficulties-. She said her living conditions improved when she was married and both her and her husband were working. Even when she stopped working to be a homemaker, she stated that her husband's income kept them in middle SES. 15 years later, after a divorce, she was forced to go back on welfare because she had no recent education and few job skills. That was 5 years ago and it was not until the last two months that she chose to pursue her grade 12 and started upgrading. .
Subject number two is a female, age 21. Growing up she considered herself both medium and high SES. Her parents separated and while living with her mom, she received private schooling and had tutors. At the age of 12 she moved in with her father and grandmother were she attended public school until the age of 15. In grade 10, she became pregnant and dropped out of school.
