A Study of the Psychological Relationships Among the Piagetian Operations of Transitivity, Seriation and Classification

Abstract

<p> Five to eight year old children were subjects in this study which examined relationships among the Piagetian operations of class inclusion, transitivity and seriation. Behavioral and verbal measures were taken of the latter two and the stimuli varied along size and weight dimensions. Transitivity and seriation were related on the verbal level only. Behavioral measures showed less relationship across operations and dimensions than verbal measures and doubts were raised as to the adequacy of using behavioral measures alone in assessing operational understanding. Only one measure of class inclusion showed any relationship to transitivity and seriation. Independent tests revealed that while simultaneous combinativity may be a component ability of all these operations, successive combinativity definitely was not.</p>