The Relationship Between Student Performance on a Paper and Pencil Test of Conservation Concepts and Performance on a Piagetian Interview Instrument
This study was undertaken to establish the concurrent validity of a paper and pencil test of conservation concepts with a standardized Piagetian interview instrument, Concept Assessment Kit - Conservation, CAC (Goldschmidt & Bentler, 1968). The two tests were administered to 59 second and third grade students at the Greenwood Laboratory School of Southwest Missouri State University. Test scores were compared by means of the Pearson r correlation with the resulting coefficient of .164 indicating that no significant relationship existed between performance on the paper and pencil test and performance of the CAC. In addition, the age in months of the students was correlated with performances on each test. No significant relationship was found to exist between the age of the students and performance on either test. Further, multiple regression was used to determine if any significant relationship existed between the weighted combination of subtest scores on the CAC and performance on the paper and pencil test. The resulting R² value of .081 indicated that no significant relationship existed between the weighted combination of CAC subtest scores and performance on the paper and pencil test. In conclusion, concurrent validity was not established for the nine-item paper and pencil test with the CAC. It is not recommended that the paper and pencil test of conservation concepts examined in this study to be utilized to assess conservation abilities of children.
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