THE DEVELOPMENT OF A GROUP TEST OF FORMAL OPERATIONAL LOGIC IN THE CONTENT AREA OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE

The theory of cognitive development defined by Jean Piaget was developed through a series of clinical interviews with Genevan subjects. Follow-up studies, also using clinical interviews in the manner of Piaget, supported the sequence of developmental stages described by Piaget, but failed to establish the inevitability of the acquisition of the final stage, that of formal operational logic. In recent years psychologists have sought to develop other forms of assessment instruments which would be more practical for large-scale use than the clinical interview. One such instrument, the group test, has been described as a combination of concrete experience and paper-and-pencil response, with opportunity for administrator-subject interaction.; The purpose of this study was the development of a group test of formal operational logic in the content area of environmental science. The study proceded in three phases.; In phase one, items were developed from a theoretic base provided by Piaget, centering around five experiences in the content area of environmental science. In phase two, items were selected from a larger pool on the basis of discrimination and difficulty, as demonstrated by a preliminary study. Finally, the final item sets were administered to 270 students, grades seven through twelve, in two suburban school districts. Data collected for each subject included scores on the Differential Aptitude Test, age, grade in science and performance on a series of group tests in logical reasoning in the area of physical science developed at the Center for Science and Mathematics Study at Chelsea College in England. Selected subjects were interviewed in the manner of Piaget's problem of floating and sinking bodies.; The Environmental Science Test developed in this research, consisting of five distinct subtests, demonstrated internal consistency as measured by Hoyt Estimate of Reliability of 0.95.; The validity of the instrument was demonstrated in three ways: (1) Content validity was demonstrated by significant correlation between the ranked difficulties of the items and the difficulty rankings expected on the basis of Piagetian theory. (2) Concurrent validity was demonstrated through significant correlation to interview and to CSMS Tasks in logical reasoning, at (alpha) = .05. (3) Construct validity was demonstrated through principal component analysis of tests, subtests, CSMS Tasks and interview results, which indicated that a single factor (hypothesized to represent logical reasoning ability) accounted for a major portion of the common variance.; Positive correlations between scores and grades in science were demonstrated. Weakly positive correlations to age were also indicated. An attempt to establish the effect of content experience on test performance was not successful, due to inherent differences in the static groups used in the study.; The feasibility of the development of group tests of logical reasoning in a wide variety of contexts has been demonstrated by this research.;...