DISCRIMINATION LEARNING: A FUNCTION OF CONSERVATION TRAINING AND CONSERVATION ABILIT

Purpose of the Study. This study investigated the effect of conservation training and conservation ability on performance of young children on a multiple-cue discrimination task. One purpose of the study was to determine if children identified as conservers would perform better on the discrimination task than children identified as nonconservers. A second purpose was to evaluate the effect of a single training session of a verbal rule method of conservation training on children's discrimination task performance.;Procedure. In an initial screening, 58 children ages 48 to 74 months were administered Gelman's conservation tasks to determine conservation status and a PPVT to obtain an estimate of mental age. From the screening, 32 children--16 conservers and 16 nonconservers--were randomly selected to participate in the study. One-half of the conservers and one-half of the nonconservers received a conservation training session while the other subjects served as a control group. Each of the 32 selected subjects were given a two-choice multiple-cue discrimination task. Following the discrimination task the children were again administered the Gelman conservation tasks. Split-plot analysis of covariances were performed on the number of trials to criterion on the discrimination task, the percentage of correct responses to the discrimination task, and the pre/post scores from the conservation tasks. Mental age estimates obtained from the PPVT were the covariates in each instance.;Findings. The results of the study generally supported the hypotheses. Discrimination task performance as measured by number of trials to criterion was significantly higher for children receiving conservation training. Performance on the conservation tasks presented following the discrimination task was significantly better for children receiving the training. No differences were found for percentage of correct responses on the discrimination task.;Conclusions. The results suggest conservation training improves performance by young children on a two-choice multiple-cue discrimination task when measured by number of trials to criterion. Since the verbal rule method of training was given, the results may be interpreted as providing support for a verbal mediation model of discrimination learning. Further, incidental support is provided for the possibility of training young children to conserve, at least in a rudimentary fashion.