Development of Piagetian Infralogical Groupings in High School Students

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Abstract
The present study examines the development of certain hypothetical cognitive structures—infralogical groupings described by Piaget and Inhelder—in high school students. Six Piagetian-type tasks, proposed to evaluate functioning with certain infralogical groupings, were individually administered to 108 boys and girls from grades eight, 10, and 12. The development of infralogical groupings in the concrete operational period purportedly enables Ss to establish spatial relationships between objects and between objects and their parts. A scalogram analysis was used to examine the development of three projective and three Euclidean infralogical groupings; the six tasks formed a hierarchy and composed a unidimensional scale when placed in order from least to most difficult. This task order was partially supported by the results of the McNemar test between adjacent pairs. Statistically significant differences in attainment were observed between age/grade level as grades increased on five tasks, and between gender on four tasks with males performing better than females. The order of task hierarchy was the same as that described by Piaget and Inhelder though the age of attainment was much later. The observed and predicted order of task attainment is discussed and reasons offered for the later age of grouping development.

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