The Effects of Conservation Training Upon Children with Different Cognitive Styles. Final Report

A total of 186 kindergarteners were pretested on number conservation and two cognitive style measures representing Kagan's impulsivity-reflectivity dimension and Santostefano's leveling-sharpening dimension. From this sample 72 nonconservers were assigned to one of three conservation training conditions: reversibility training, discrimination training, or no training. Impulsive-reflective and leveling-sharpening children were represented in approximately equal numbers in each of the training conditions. Two posttests of number conservation and transfer conservation were administered, one immediately and another two weeks later. Results indicate that: (1) prior to training, natural conservers made fewer errors on the impulsivity-reflectivity measure than nonconservers; (2) impulsive children were more susceptible to reversibility training, and reflective children profited more from discrimination training; and (3) in the transfer tasks, reflective children improved their conservation status from immediate to delayed posttests while impulsive children did not. In contrast to the impulsivity-reflectivity dimension, the leveling-sharpening dimension did not seem related to conservation in any consistent manner. (Author/SH)