Piaget and Gesell: A Psychometric Analysis of Tests Built From Their Tasks

KAUFMAN, ALAN S. Piaget and Gesell: A Psychometric Analysis of Tests Built from Their Tasks. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1971, 42, 1341-1360. The Gesell School Readiness Tests, a specially constructed battery built from Piaget's tasks and the Lorge-Thorndike Intelligence Tests, were administered to 103 kindergarten children. The Piaget and Gesell tests correlated about .60 with MA and with each other, but only about .15 with a measure of physical maturity (teething level) that was obtained. A factor analysis of the 13 Piaget tasks produced 3 rotated factors analogous to Piaget's posited operations of number, classes, and relations. A factor analysis of the 11 Gesell tasks provided insight into Ilg and Ames's (1965) postulated construct of behavioral maturity. A joint analysis of the Piaget, Gesell, and Lorge-Thorndike tests produced a large unrotated general factor; after rotation, each battery loaded on a separate factor.