Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessments (AEPA) Early Childhood Education Practice Test

Which stage involves children learning to understand the concept of conservation, where quantity remains the same despite changes in shape or arrangement?

1. Preoperational stage

2. Concrete operational stage

3. Formal operational stage

4. Sensorimotor stage

The correct answer is: Concrete operational stage

The correct choice is the Concrete operational stage, which is characterized by significant cognitive developments in children typically between the ages of 7 and 11. During this stage, children begin to grasp the concept of conservation, understanding that certain properties of objects, such as volume, mass, and number, remain constant even when their shapes or arrangements change. For instance, a child in this stage realizes that if you pour water from a short, wide glass into a tall, narrow one, the amount of water remains the same despite the change in container shape. This understanding marks a crucial shift from earlier cognitive limitations seen in younger children, where the focus on one aspect of a situation (like height or width) may lead to misconceptions about quantity. In contrast, the preoperational stage, which precedes concrete operational thinking, lacks this understanding. Children may not yet realize that rearranging objects doesn't alter their quantity, indicative of the egocentric thinking typical of that stage. Additionally, the sensorimotor stage, occurring before the preoperational stage, primarily focuses on interacting with the environment through senses and motor actions, with no capabilities for understanding conservation. The formal operational stage, which comes after concrete operational thinking, introduces abstract reasoning and hypothetical situations, but conservation skills