Abstract

The purpose of this study was to examine the development of the judgments of area of rectangles and acquisition of area conservation in terms of the use of integration roles. The subjects were 5-year-old(N=44), 7-year-old(N=44), 9-year-old (N=44), and 11-year-old(N=44) children. In each group, there were equal number of boys and girls. All of the subjects were individually administered the Piagetian standard conservation task before presenting the area of rectangle judgment task. This experiment consisted of 4(age) by 4(height of rectangles; 2,4,6,8 cm) by 4(width of rectangles; 2,4,6,8cm) within subject design. The dependent measures were 16 number response values on the rating scale contained a series of 24 circles. The data were analyzed in terms of repeated measures ANOVA, ANGOVA and graphical analysis. The results were shown as follows: First, the age - related differences in the judgments of area of rectangles were significant, that is, children`s information integration rules developed from the additive rule into the multiplying rule with age. Second, the acquisition of arms conservation - related differences in the judgments of area of rectangles were significant. That is, the nonconserving children generally had a tendency to use an additive rule. The conserving children in contrast appeared to use a multiplying rule. Also the age-related differences in the information integration rules by the conservers of arms in the judgments of area of rectangles used were nonsignificant. Thus the conserving children regardless of age seems to judge of the area of rectangles referring to the width and the height.