Piaget, Children's Conception of Causality, chpt 9
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Summary of Piaget's "The Mechanism of Bicycles"
In “The Mechanism of Bicycles,” Jean Piaget demonstrates the value derived from interviews with children in relation to insight into the development of their understanding of phenomena. The bicycle proved to be “an excellent subject for questions” (197) because all of the boys interviewed were familiar with this simple machine. Piaget notes that girls were not included in these interviews because they were “naturally two or three years behind in this domain, for lack of interest in the question...” (197). The process of questioning was such that the subjects, with the exception of only the youngest boys, were asked to draw a detailed picture of a bicycle and were then questioned, sometimes with an actual bicycle present for them to examine, regarding the functions of various parts of the mechanism. The youngest boys were given a sort of puzzle to use in piecing together the parts of a bicycle. Generally, the questioning sought to determine the boy's understanding of causality of the operation of a bicycle related to its mechanical structure.
According to Piaget, the development of causal understanding occurs in four stages. In the first stage, which corresponds to the average age of 4 -5 years, a boy's understanding of the operation of a bicycle is what Piaget calls “entirely synthetic” (198). Piaget explains this to mean that the operation of the bicycle is seen as a whole that occurs “by a sort of general forward impetus (élan d'ensemble)" (200). In other words, "this synthetic perception tends to find together all the elements of a given whole, but does not bring out the analysis of particular sequences" (199 – 200). Piaget provides several interview excerpts to demonstrate this synthetic, or "syncretistic" (199), understanding: one in which the parts may be identified but their interconnection is not recognized. In his concluding remarks about this first stage, Piaget notes three important features of it: the tendency toward explanations based upon moral determinism, explanations "without spatial contact" (204), and a tendency toward explanations based upon some sort of dynamism.
The second stage of cognitive development related to causal relationships in phenomena, which corresponds to an average age of 5 – 6 years old, differs only slightly from the first stage. Both demonstrate a complete lack of concern about the “how” of bicycle operation. In this second stage, there is greater awareness of the various parts of the mechanism but there is still no understanding of the causal interactions of these parts. Thus, the understanding of causality remains synthetic in this stage. The new feature of this stage, according to Piaget, is the increased attention to detail. However, this attention to detail results in drawings that “show a mere juxtaposition of the parts, since the mind has not yet grasped their relations” (210). Further, Piaget points out that there is a direct relationship between the juxtaposition of parts in the child's drawing and the synthetic concept of causality: “it is because the cause of movement is synthetic that the pieces are simply juxtaposed, and it is because the pieces are simply juxtaposed that the explanation of the movement is still synthetic or syncretistic” (210).
The third and fourth stages, which occur at about 7 and 8 years old respectively, differ from the earlier stages in that they include a rejection of synthetic causal explanations and incorporate attempts to arrive at an “irreversible sequence of cause and effect in the detailed interaction of the parts” (211). The difference between these two final stages is that those demonstrating Stage 3 understanding do not quite comprehend the complete causal relationship between the parts of a bicycle. Stage 3 explanations are “rudimentary” (211) while Stage 4 explanations are correctly detailed.
Throughout this chapter, Piaget provides interview excerpts to support his analysis and conclusions. It is interesting to note, however, that Piaget provides far fewer interview excerpts in his examination of the final stages (3 and 4) of the development of children. Clearly, as the children's explanations more accurately explain the phenomena about which they are being questioned, or become closer to the explanations that we, as adults, would give, it is not necessary to provide as much data regarding the nature of differing answers. Since the answers provided by boys in the first two stages of development differ so drastically from our understanding and explanation of reality, it is more difficult for us to recognize the features of their thinking without extensive documentation in the form of interview excerpts. In other words, the more novel or radical an element of analysis is from mainstream thinking, the more significant and valuable are such interview excerpts in building a case for one's research-based conclusions.
