Piaget & Inhelder (1956): three mountains

The documented failure here. Candidates say "this is the pre-operational stage" and stop — but the question asked about the study, so a stage label alone earns little. Add the result (4-6s chose their own view), the comparison (9+ chose the doll's, so failure is age-related) and the conclusion (younger children are egocentric).

Asked to justify something using a named study, candidates answer with the theory instead. If the question says "using the three mountains task", the answer must carry the model, the doll, the 10 pictures and the age pattern — not a general account of the pre-operational stage. Give one procedural detail or one real finding, or no marks are available.

The most reliably-lost mark on study questions, easy here because the two sound alike. Asked for a result, "young children are egocentric" scores zero — that is the inference; the result is "4-6s chose their own view". Asked for a conclusion, "4-6s picked their own view" scores zero — the conclusion is "they cannot decentre, so the ability develops with age".

An improvement is what you would change if the study ran again — not a weakness restated. "The task is artificial" becomes an improvement only when you name a change and its effect: "use a task that makes human sense to a child, such as hiding a doll from a toy policeman". State the change, then what it fixes. Restating the fault with no change earns nothing.

A describe the difference item needs a connective like whereas — two definitions side by side leave the contrast implicit and score one mark at best. Example: "a result is what the children were observed to do, whereas a conclusion is what the researcher infers". A 2-mark describe also needs two unique points; a reworded repeat is credited once.

"A strength is that it was a lab study" names a point and abandons it. A creditworthy point has three parts: the point, why it follows here (the procedural feature), and the consequence. Shape: "standardised — every child saw the same model, doll positions and 10 pictures — so it can be repeated to check the age pattern, making it reliable".

Everyday "egocentric" is an insult; here it is a cognitive description — reading it the everyday way turns a right answer wrong. It means the child cannot represent a viewpoint other than their own, not a character flaw. A 4-year-old covering his eyes to hide shows this; the failure fades with age. "Children are selfish" attacks a claim the study never made.

The study shows children failed this task, not that they cannot take any viewpoint. The model is artificial, and holding the doll's position across 10 similar pictures is demanding enough to cause failure, weakening validity. Hughes's policeman doll task (1975) found younger children could work out another's view, so it underestimated them.