McGarrigle and Donaldson's Teddy study

• McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974)


  Aimed to see if Piaget's results were due to the fact that children saw the counters being changed, therefore assumed it was deliberate.
• Method

  • 80 Children in the study, all from Edinburgh.
  • 40 children were nursery students and 40 were from primary.
  • Children shown two rows of counters with four red and four white.
  • Introduced to a naught teddy bear, likely to escape.
  • Teddy jumped out of his box and pushed the counters in one row.
  • Children were asked the same question,
  • "Is there more in this row, this row, or are they the same?"
• Results

  • 41% of the children gave the correct answer in Piaget's test
  • 68% of the children gave the correct answer in this test.
  • Primary school children got it correct more often than nursery students.
• Conclusion

  Traditional method of testing conservation underestimated what children can do. Proved Piaget wrong.
• Evaluation point 1

  • Weakness- Sample bias
  • All children were taken from one area.
  • Older children may have done better than younger due to their educational backgrounds.