The present study was to examine the development of conditional reasoning ability, which characterizes adolescent thinking. The problems consisted of four basic types of conditional reasoning, each type containing five contents of propositions. The four types of problems examined were: affirming the antecedent (AA), denying the consequent (DC), denying the antecedent (DA), and affirming the consequent (AC). The five contents were: causal, factual, arbitrary, hypothetical, and abstract, inserted in every conditional sentence. Forty problems were uscd in all, giving two problems to the twenty combinations of four types and five contents. 405 subjects were picked up from 3rd and 5th graders of elementary school, lst and 3rd graders of junior high school, and lst year of college, and they made experiment I.
Main results were as follows:
1. The four types of problems had distinctly different developmental traits, in AA, 80% of the 3rd graders of elementary school gave the correct responses, and a tendency for increasing ability was shown from this period onward. In DC, about 70% of all subjects gave the correct responses. However, a tendency for increasing ability was not shown. On the other hand, in DA-AC problems, only 30-40% of the college students performed correctly. Thus, in terms of increasing number of correct responses, the order of problem types was AA, DC, and DA and AC. This finding was similar to previous findings on the development of conditional reasoning ability.
2. The coefficients of correlation between problem types were calculated in each grade. From this analysis, it was found that there were negative correlations between AA and DC, and DA and AC except for college students (-.15-.55). This indicated that subjects who were good performers on the former types (AA, DC) were poor performers on the later (DA, AC), and vice versa.
But, with college students, these coefficients were positive (.12-.18).
3. An examination was also made of the contents used for each problem type in order to determine whether some contents were more difficult than others. It was revealed that factual and arbitrary contents were easier than hypothetical and abstract ones, and causal content was easy in AA and DC, but relatively difficult if DA and AC.
4. The error analysis indicated that logically non-sense responses were no longer used by students if the 1st grade of junior high school. Thus, it was suggested that the period of transition from a lower to a higher stage in thinking occurred at about this time.
Experiment II was designed to clarify the meaning of error patterns I (A-B pattern, A-C pattern) found in experiment I; the A-B pattern indicated a probable inference, and the A-C pattern had been considered as a result of a biconditional inference. Two kinds of training, implication (I) and verbal representation (VR), were given to the Ss.
Main results were as follows:
1. With the subjects classified in the A-C pattern, the training effect of VR was nil. But, in the I condition, the correct responses of DA and AC increased significantly. It therefore appeared that these subjects had a reasoning ability, but had mistaken conditional sentences.
2. With the subjects in the A-B pattern, the training effects of VR and I were obtained if DA and AC, and AC, respectively. Thus, it was suggested that this pattern showed an incomplete understanding of representation of conclusions, but it is believed that it was due in part to a misunderstanding of implication.
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