Children’s Understanding of Measurement

Abstract

In the teaching of logical and mathematical skills, psychology has often preached the value of patience. Piaget, especially, has suggested that certain types of training will be useless until the child has reached a particular stage. A key example of this argument concerns the young child’s understanding of measurement. Piaget claims that young children do not understand transitivity. Knowing, for example, that A=B and that B=C, they fail to conclude that A=C. Measurement involves transitivity, since it requires the comparison of two items by means of a third item or scale, such as a ruler. A child who does not understand transitivity cannot use a measuring instrument to make an indirect comparison of two items.