A Note on Piaget's Experiment concerning the Child's Conception of "Acceleration"

Abstract

It is well known that Piaget, J. made the experiments about the child's conception of "Acceleration" from a psycological point of view. This paper is a study concerning the child's conception of "Acceleration" from Piaget's experiment and its improved study on the basis his idea using a new apparatus. Piaget studied the child's cenception of "Acceleration" using the falling body on an inclined plane. The author studied it through not only the Piaget's experiment above mentioned, but also two new experimental equipments. One of them is the Atwood apparatus, using falling body along a vertical line. The other one is the apparatus using the moving body on a horizontal line. The findings from the result of the experiment are as follows; (1) In the experiments with the movement of both an inclined line, a vertical line and a horizontal line, the way of the child's conception of "Acceleration" is almost the same as the result of Piaget's experiment. (2) Each of the directions of the movement is not influenced to the child's judgement of "Acceleration". (3) some children, a few infants in particular, understand the meaning of "Acceleration", and it seems that some of them perceptionally judge it as if by the conception "Instantaneous Speed". (4) It is possible to let the children judge "Acceleration" more effectively when they observe the phenomenon of ball rebound and operate it under the "Instructions (means observation of phenomena or operation of apparatus)".