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| jean_piaget [2026/04/20 01:27] – [The Clinical-Critical Method and the Study of Children's Reasoning] ducha | jean_piaget [2026/04/20 01:28] (current) – [The Clinical-Critical Method and the Study of Children's Reasoning] ducha |
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| ==== The Clinical-Critical Method and the Study of Children's Reasoning ==== | ==== The Clinical-Critical Method and the Study of Children's Reasoning ==== |
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| Piaget's methodological contribution was as significant as his theoretical one. Dissatisfied with both the rigidly standardised psychometric test (which measured performance but not the structure of reasoning) and the purely observational approach (which could not penetrate beneath overt behaviour to underlying cognitive organisation), he developed what he called the **clinical-critical method** (//méthode clinique-critique//): a flexible, hypothesis-driven conversational interview in which the researcher follows the child's reasoning wherever it leads, asking probing questions designed to distinguish genuine cognitive structures from superficial, memorised responses. A child who says that the taller of two equal glasses contains more liquid is not simply mistaken; she is expressing a coherent but pre-conserving logic that must be understood on its own terms before it can be productively challenged. This approach demanded that the researcher suspend the assumption that children's errors are mere deficits relative to adult cognition, and treat them instead as evidence of a qualitatively different but internally consistent way of organising experience. The clinical-critical method has been enormously influential in developmental psychology, educational research, and clinical child assessment, and its adoption by [[Nguyen Phuoc Vinh Bang|Vinh-Bang]] for systematic school-based testing — in the famous //valise Vinh-Bang// — represents one of its most direct educational applications. | Piaget's methodological contribution was as significant as his theoretical one. Dissatisfied with both the rigidly standardised psychometric test (which measured performance but not the structure of reasoning) and the purely observational approach (which could not penetrate beneath overt behaviour to underlying cognitive organisation), he developed what he called the **clinical-critical method** (//méthode clinique-critique//): a flexible, hypothesis-driven conversational interview in which the researcher follows the child's reasoning wherever it leads, asking probing questions designed to distinguish genuine cognitive structures from superficial, memorised responses. A child who says that the taller of two equal glasses contains more liquid is not simply mistaken; she is expressing a coherent but pre-conserving logic that must be understood on its own terms before it can be productively challenged. This approach demanded that the researcher suspend the assumption that children's errors are mere deficits relative to adult cognition, and treat them instead as evidence of a qualitatively different but internally consistent way of organising experience. The clinical-critical method has been enormously influential in developmental psychology, educational research, and clinical child assessment, and its adoption by [[Nguyen Phuoc Vinh Bang|Nguyễn Phước Vĩnh Bang]] for systematic school-based testing — in the famous //valise Vinh-Bang// — represents one of its most direct educational applications. |
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| * Piaget, J. (1926). //La représentation du monde chez l'enfant//. Alcan. | * Piaget, J. (1926). //La représentation du monde chez l'enfant//. Alcan. |
