Neo-Piagetian Theories and Educational Practice

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Abstract
Three studies are reported showing different aspects of relating Piagetian studies to intervention research concerned with accelerating the cognitive development of early adolescents. It is argued that inferring causation from results of intervention studies is problematical. The first study involved Feuerstein's model of Mediated Learning and Instrumental Enrichment; the second utilised training on formal operational schemata in the context of science education, and the third investigated the effect of training for field‐independence on Piagetian tests and on science learning. In each case effect‐sizes of the order of one standard deviation on Piagetian tests between experimental and control were shown to be achievable over a period of a year or more, and in two types of study it was shown that the effects were not transient. Nevertheless, two substantial issues were common to each study. The effects shown on Piagetian and other tests had not been shown to transfer to students' learning during the intervention, and the successful communication of an intervention model to practising teachers was found to be a major research issue.