Abstract
D.Litt. et Phil.
Jean Piaget (1896-1980) played a major role in laying the groundwork for many of our current beliefs about cognitive development. While specific beliefs and ideas of different cultures may vary, Piaget posited that the stages of cognitive development, namely, sensori-motor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational, unfold in the same sequence at roughly the same ages, irrespective of cultural and educational background. The new political changes in South Africa have transformed the education policies from the content-orientated, rote-learning based curriculum of the past, to a skills-based, interactive learning approach called Outcomes-Based Education (OBE). OBE aims to move away from the old ¡¥tabula rasa¡¦ education policy towards a dynamic learning system that involves learners at a critical level of intelligence. OBE presents itself as compatible with developments in cognitive psychology, particularly Piaget¡¦s theory of intellectual development.
With the recent change in curriculum, this research investigated whether children in South Africa have attained concrete and formal operations as OBE purports to encourage. The research takes a closer look at children¡¦s cognitive abilities as assessed by Piaget¡¦s theory of development. With reference to South African education ¡§as part of the far-reaching political, social and economic changes, aimed at an egalitarian and healthy society, the new political dispensation has replaced the previous education policy with a constructivist, Outcomes Based Educational approach.¡¨ (Skuy et al, 1999, p. 3).
This study was conducted on children from grades one through to grades five, at two primary schools. One of the schools implemented OBE „b 4 years ago (experimental group), whilst the other has not as yet implemented OBE (control group). The measuring instruments consisted of Piaget¡¦s cognitive tests for assessing the concrete and formal operational stages. Piaget¡¦s tests are designed to look for a particular type of understanding/reasoning that typifies a particular developmental stage (Bybee & Sund, 1982). The tests consisted of one-to-one interviews designed to evaluate concrete, transitional and formal operational patterns of thought.
Due to the relatively small sample group (ten participants per group) and the fact that the data is ordinal, the analysis was carried out using non-parametric and descriptive statistics. Thus, the results of Piaget¡¦s tests were compared to OBE related marks and academic marks using Spearman¡¦s Correlation Coefficient for ranked data, in order to better understand the nature of the relationship between OBE and cognitive development. Since the data is categorical, i.e., categorised as concrete operational and formal operational, the results of each child in the OBE school were also compared to the results of each child in the non-OBE school using the Mann-Whitney-U test (Howell, 1995) in order to determine whether there is a difference between OBE-cognitive development and Non-OBE-cognitive development.
The aim of this study was to establish whether O.B.E is indeed a better approach than other methods of teaching with reference to cognitive development. The conclusion that can be drawn from this study is that O.B.E is not necessarily a more superior system to that of other teaching systems, and that in fact, the more traditional methods of teaching may enhance cognitive development more than O.B.E.
Dr. Alban Burke