International Journal of Psychology 20 (1985) 33-61 North-Holland

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STUDIES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT IN PAPUA NEW GUINEA John D. SHEA * University of Newcastle, A ustralia Revised version received February 1983

This paper reviews research dealing with problem solving abilities amongst Papua New Guineans. Studies concerned with individual intelligence tests, group intelligence tests, achievement tests, conservation measures, classificatory skills, and formal operational thinking are considered. Data are discussed which compared the performance of Papua New Guinean children and adults with people elsewhere, and with foreigners resident in Papua New Guinea. As well, important differences within Papua New Guinea related in particular to schooling and language-culture group are noted. By contrast with some previous conclusions about the cognitive skills of Papua New Guineans, it is concluded that while there are differences between some Papua New Guinean groups and groups from English speaking countries in problem-solving performance, developmen­ tal patterns appear to be similar. Thus, educated Papua New Guineans eventually achieve the highest levels of formal thinking.

Introduction Research interest in intelligence testing in Papua New Guinea, as in other developing countries, has arisen from broad educational concerns. Theoretical questions about the nature of intelligence have been of less interest than simply describing levels of intellectual competence. Theo­ retical issues have intruded at the level of considering the functional equivalence of various intellectual skills in the Papua New Guinean situation, as compared with the situation in which the tests were developed. In other words, in discovering whether or not the same kinds of problem-solving abilities are valued, and useful, in the same way in different cultures. Little is known about problem solving in cultures outside those where the intelligence tests have been developed. * Author's address: J.D. Shea, Dept. of Psychology, The University of Newcastle, Newcastle, N.S.W. 2308, Australia. 0O20-7594/85/S3.30 © 1985, Elsevier Science Publishers B.V. (North-Holland)

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Discussion of universal mental processes or of technological versus social intelligence, may mislead us to believe that there is a sound empirical base for our cross-cultural evaluations, and unchallenged support for our theoretical notions about intelligence even with West­ ern societies. If we are to understand intelligence - usually conceived of in educational contexts as the ability to solve various kinds of problems in a country like Papua New Guinea, we must ultimately examine the kinds of problem solving which go on in various communities, the way they are valued, and the way they relate to the kinds of problem solving which occur in other cultures. This is a long and expensive process, however desirable it may seem to the theoretician. In Papua New Guinea the emphasis has fallen on the latter step in this process. The concern has been to examine Papua New Guineans' abilities to solve problems which have been selected or modified to be 'appropriate' in Papua New Guinea, as well as relevant to outside cultures, or which have been extensively used elsewhere and have been imported intact into the Papua New Guinea situation. This is because the organizations which have financed and encouraged research within Papua New Guinea, in particular the Armed Services, and the Ministries of Labour and Education, have had as their dominant concern training and selection for intellectual skills appropriate to the introduced cultural systems. For example, the Ministry of Education is concerned to predict performance at various levels of the formal, Western-oriented education system, or to understand difficulties that children may have in coping with that system. This requires an approach which, in Berry's (1969) terms is essentially etic, in that 'universal' criteria developed from outside Papua New Guinea and using a structure developed elsewhere are used to examine Papua New Guinean children. There is some room for emic concerns, those which are specific to individual Papua New Guinean cultures, in examining patterns of performance across different cultural groups. Thus it may be possible to explore the extent to which Western concepts have been assimilated, while at the same time identifying ways in which this differs across various cultural groups. This process may be of eventual value for the researcher, in clarifying factors which are related to cross-cultural differences in performance, and subsequently for the education system in permitting improved curricula for specific cultural groups. That is, in hastening the assimilation of Western patterns of thought.

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The procedure of adapting techniques developed elsewhere (e.g. by using familiar materials) for use in Papua New Guinea, or selecting tasks which seemed culturally appropriate, has been more important in non-schooled groups, since the testing of school children (who make up the majority of those tested) has usually occurred in the classroom using procedures of a similar order to those commonly used in evaluat­ ing children's progress. For the schooled children, the context of testing was not unfamiliar. Except for the most recent studies, testers were usually male, and (like most teachers until recently) from Western European ethnic groups. Since the data collected by Papua New Guinean testers (e.g. Shea and Yerua 1980; Shea et al. 1981; 1983) are in agreement with data collected by foreign researchers, the ethnic back­ ground of skilled testers in Papua New Guinea may not have seriously distorted findings.

Individual intelligence tests Most of the research referred to in this category deals with standardized tests whose validity and reliability were established in the Papua New Guinea context. The most significant work in the area of individual testing was carried out by J.G. Ord (1959, 1967, 1968a, 1968b, 1970, 1971a, 1971b, 1972; Ord and Schofield 1969, 1970). Responding in the first instance (as early as 1957) to the need to improve selection procedures for the army, Ord developed an essentially non-verbal test battery, which formed the basis for a number of other scales used in Papua New Guinea and Australia. Ord started with items which were derived from a variety of sources. Implicit in his selection procedure is the idea that there are certain problems which are about 'intelligence', and that different cultural groups are likely to have intellectual abilities relevant to the solution of these problems. Ord's tests proved to be valid and reliable measures of abilities. A major observation made by Ord is one that has affected research programmes, and possibly educational curricula, down to the present day. Ord assumed that there would be no marked differences in mental abilities between ethnic groups in Papua New Guinea, and apparently found no such differences. For this reason the ethnic character of groups tested in Papua New Guinea was not given particular emphasis

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in the sampling of test subjects or in educational programmes provided. It is only in recent times that psychological research has again turned to the question of cross-cultural differences in cognitive abilities within Papua New Guinea. Another piece of research which is of interest because of the variety of tests used and the sophistication of the data analysis is that of Rawlinson (1974). Rawlinson was looking for 'a universal or general factor of intelligence' and deliberately chose performance and test items developed elsewhere in order to pin-point ways in which the perfor­ mance of Papua New Guinean (Southern Highlands) primary level children differed from that of Australian (Tasmanian) children. She pointed out that the education system itself was foreign, and culturally biased, and that using foreign tests to predict success within that system is quite appropriate. She found huge differences between Papua New Guinean and Australian children related to a 'staggering verbal deficit', on the part of the Papua New Guinean children, possible motivational problems, and little interest in working speedily. Rawlinson suggested also that this difference in performance was related to a culturally imposed field dependence, a lack of experience in dealing with abstrac­ tions (related to supposed inadequacies of Melanesian Pidgin or area vernaculars), and relative deprivation of play-toy experiences. Of course, these are speculations and, while sometimes plausible, require much further testing. Rawlinson's data suggested that the intellectual structures of the two groups were actually very similar, though overall scores differed greatly. She found evidence of this from the very similar patterns of responses produced by the two groups, revealed by factor analyses, and by similar developments across school grade. Thus the tests she used may not have been as inappropriate as first impressions suggest. The problem to be solved is the reason for the poorer performance of the Papua New Guinean children. We need to know, also, whether children from other areas in Papua New Guinea perform the same way as the Southern Highlands children in this study.

Group intelligence tests During the 1960s the number of educated Papua New Guineans seeking further training of some kind or other, increased dramatically,

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and new psychological tests were developed to enable some kind of rational selection among the applicants by the various training institu­ tions. Most of these tests were developed by Psychological Services, a branch of the Public Services Commission, under the supervision of I.G. Ord, or R.E. Hicks. As with the individual tests developed earlier, efforts were concentrated on producing 'culturally appropriate' tests by extensively testing items that had been used successfully elsewhere, and eliminating those that were not working, or by trying to develop new items which seemed to be more in tune with the Papua New Guinea situation. Data presented in various publications (e.g. Ord 1967, 1968a, 1968b, 1971a, 1972; Ord and Schofield 1969, 1970; Hicks 1970, 1971; Hicks and Bowlay 1974) indicate that many of these tests were reliable, and valid predictors of later training success. These studies suggested that the further education progressed, the closer the mental ability factor patterns came to Western models except for some minor dif­ ferences. Most other group-testing studies found little evidence of differences in test scores between Papua New Guineans and other (usually Australian) groups, particularly when language ability was taken into account and where there was no.time pressure (e.g. Bowlay 1970, 1972; Ord 1971b; Hutton and Hicks 1971). However, it should be remem­ bered that this was true most often only with respect to test items that were systematically selected for use with Papua New Guineans, and that differences remained with respect to timed tests. There was some inconsistency also in the kinds of tests in which the Papua New Guinean groups did well. Once it was a numerical test (Ord 1971a). Another time it was an abstract reasoning test but not a numerical test (Hutton and Hicks 1971). Explanations are further complicated by the fact that the Papua New Guinean groups were usually culturally heterogenous. Another body of work involving group testing is that of Prince (1968, 1969). Others have discussed this material in the context of Piagetian ideas (e.g. Dasen 1972), but though the concepts involved are ap­ parently similar, testing involved multiple-choice responding in a group situation, a procedure totally unacceptable in a Piagetian framework. Though comparison with other work seems impossible, since no other researchers have used this methodology, the large samples of primarylevel children tested allow for comparison between three different areas in Papua New Guinea, the Western Province, ' the Highlands', and the

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Central Province, and between Papua New Guinean children and Caucasian children living in Papua New Guinea. Over all the tests there was a superiority of three to four school grades for the Australian/Caucasian group over the Papua New Guinean groups, but little difference between the Papua New Guinean groups. Older Papua New Guinean children did better than younger children, and the pattern of their performance was more like that of the Australian children. Prince's data led him to conclude that a major explanation for the lower performance of the Papua New Guinean group was the nature of many Papua New Guinean languages. He suggested an absence in many indigenous languages of ways for ex­ pressing transitivity or reversibility, which affected the ability to think logically, and a very restricted, context dependent exposure to classifi­ cation systems, which again limited the potential for logical thought. Rawlinson (1974) also preferred these kinds of explanations to account for her findings about the performance of Papua New Guinean stu­ dents. However, like Rawlinson, Prince did not examine these hypothe­ ses systematically, and however appealing some of them appear, they must be considered merely as tentative until further research is carried out. Published studies of the achievement levels of Papua New Guinean students have indicated major problems in the area of mathematics and science in spite of major attempts to produce adequate curricula (Goodwin 1970; MacKay 1969, 1970; Jones 1972, 1974; Lancy 1977). Furthermore, MacKay (1970) found little improvement in Science understanding after a year at teacher's college, and Jones (1974) found no improvement in various number tasks after a preparatory (grade 12) year at university. We may conclude that on language reduced group tests which were carefully chosen because they discriminated between Papua New Guineans, and in which no time constraint was placed, Papua New Guinean students were able to score as well as foreign groups (of mostly Australian composition), but tasks more closely related to the classroom situation indicated major differences between Papua New Guineans and these groups. There is little evidence in this work of differences within Papua New Guinea.

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Concrete operations tasks Several recent research efforts in Papua New Guinea have aimed to discover causes and solutions for the problems revealed in Mathematics and Science, by using a Piagetian approach in the investigation of problem-solving or thinking. Piaget's (1974) emphasis is on description of the basic structures and functioning of thinking, rather than of test scores. Along with this emphasis comes a methodology, the clinical method, which in principle can be readily adapted to different cultural situations. A major advantage of the Piagetian technique is that it enables us to state the stage of development a particular child's think­ ing has reached. We cannot do this using traditional IQ tests. This point is particularly important in the Papua New Guinea school system which is based largely on an Australian model, and in which children begin secondary school at about age 13. If Papua New Guinean children do not develop in their thinking at the same age level as Australians, an Australian-based secondary school system commencing at age 13 may be quite inappropriate.

Conservation As Price (1978) has noted, in Papua New Guinea as elsewhere, most of the Piagetian research has been directed to the investigation of 'con­ servation'. According to Piaget, the concrete operations stage of think­ ing develops during the age from seven to eleven years (Piaget and Inhelder 1958). During this period different conservation concepts develop. Number and length come first, then quantity (substance), conservation of weight, and finally the more difficult concepts, area, time and volume. We know now that this description of events does not always apply even in Western urban societies (Elkind 1962; McKinnon and Renner 1971; Towler and Wheatley 1971), and often does not apply in many less developed countries, either with uneducated tribal peoples, or with children in school (Dasen 1972). However, the order of appearance of the major Piagetian stages, sensori-motor, pre-operations, concrete operations, and formal operations, as indicated by performance on Piaget's tests, seems to occur in other cultures. Quite clearly the Piagetian tests offer a useful way of discovering the develop­ mental status of individuals, of finding out how children are solving

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problems at various ages, particularly since so much cross-cultural data is now available for comparison (e.g. Berry and Dasen 1974). The most extensive studies of conservation in Papua New Guinea until very recent times were those of Kelly and his associates (Kelly 1971a, 1971b, 1977; Philp and Kelly 1974, 1977; Kelly and Philp 1975), who used both conservation (or 'product') tasks, especially length and quantity, and tasks dealing with the ability to classify objects and events ('process' tasks). Most of Kelly's work was carried out with Melpa, Goilala and Sepik groups from fairly specific areas. More recently, Shea (Shea and Yerua 1980; Shea et al. 1981; 1983) has tested 987 children from nine different language-culture groups, and Lancy (1978) has tested about 400 children from many different language-cul­ ture groups. These are the largest studies, but several smaller studies also appear in the literature, from Jones (1973a and b); Lewis and Mulford (1974); Price and Nidue (1974); and Rawlinson (1974). The evidence indicates that, on the tests used, Papua New Guineans generally perform less well than certain selected Western European groups. Precise statements are not possible because of language-culture differences between the Papua New Guinean groups tested, but speak­ ing generally it seems that with the conservation skill which appears earliest, that of Number, there seems to be about a 3-year delay for Papua New Guinean students. This delay seems to lengthen gradually with the more difficult tasks, until-it is approximately 6 years for the Volume and Time conservation tasks. However, the available evidence makes it clear that with school children (a highly selected group of the Papua New Guinean population), an increasing percentage comes to conserve on a variety of tasks. It seems possible also that given equivalent schooling, and other environmental advantages enjoyed by many Europeans, Papua New Guinean children may perform just as well on tests of cognitive development. Lancy (1978) compared two small, but randomly selected groups of children from International schools in Port Moresby. One group was Papua New Guinean, the other Expatriate (mostly Australian). Fees for these schools are about one hundred times the rate for schools for Papua New Guinean nationals, thus Papua New Guinean children attending them come from families of civil servants, and business people that are wealthy by Papua New Guinean standards, and that approach the living standards of most of the foreign children in the International schools. Most of the Papua New Guinean children

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conserved length and all of the expatriates did so, but there was no significant difference between the groups. Another observation worth emphasizing is the closeness with which the appearance of conservation on various tasks follows that described by Piaget. About 50% of the Papua New Guinean children tested by Shea (Shea and Yerua 1980; Shea et al. 1981; 1983) conserved Number by age 10. The same study and the others referred to above indicated that Length conservation was present for about 50% of children by age 13, Quantity conservation by 12 to 13, Weight conservation by 13 to 14, Area conservation (probably) by 17 to 18. Some may wish to see this as a vindication of Piaget's theories about cognitive structures. More conservatively, it can be stated that tasks which are conceptually more difficult for Western (European) children, are also more difficult for Papua New Guinean children. A major qualification to such conclu­ sions is that there are differences between groups within Papua New Guinea, an issue which will be addressed further later in this paper.

Classification skills The classificatory abilities of Papiia New Guineans have been of interest to anthropologists interested in describing the world view of people they have lived with, and more recently by psychologists who have seen classification skills as intimately related to educational success. Wolfers (1969) summarized anthropological findings, including his own observations, concerning mathematics in various cultures in Papua New Guinea. He concluded that Papua New Guineans are 'naturally un­ familiar with properties of sets or classes much beyond the fact that sets can be counted off serially'. This raises practical questions about possible remedial action as well as theoretical questions about cultural factors which influence the way in which we reason about our environ­ ment. The psychological research has not always produced unequivocal findings. A first generalization is that there seems to be considerable inconsistency in the conclusions that might be made according to the particular testing situation that has been used. Data from a two-dimen­ sional matrix task led Kelly (1971b), and Philp and Kelly (1974, 1977), to conclude that younger Papua New Guinean children were strongly affected by the perceptual nature of the task (in their generally lower

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performance), and that the 'visual mode' was very strong for them. Rawlinson (1974) seemed to be saying a similar thing in explaining the relatively poor performance of Papua New Guinean children on a two-dimensional classification task as being due to their inability to free themselves from contextual dependence on perceived cues. A similar conclusion seems possible from studies with the Olson bulb board (Philp and Kelly 1974). However, sorting tasks with picture or words (Philp and Kelly 1974; Kelly and Philp 1975; and Lancy 1978) generally indicated that Papua New Guinean children preferred functional bases for classification rather than supposedly lower-level perceptible (iconic) bases, or higherlevel symbolic bases, regardless of school grade. Neither the two-dimen­ sional classification tasks nor the sorting tasks gave any evidence of movement towards symbolic bases for classification and the hypothetico-deductive reasoning which presumably goes along with this, in primary and younger high school children tested, but a free recall test procedure used by Lancy (1978), showed several groups of Papua New Guinean high school children scoring higher than a comparable group of 'foreign' (mostly Australian) children, often using a superordinate nominal classification procedure during recall. Thus although Papua New Guinean children generally do less well than foreign groups of comparable age and grade, particularly with complex tasks, the discrepancies noted suggest that a part of the problem lies in the inadequacy of at least some of the task situations for truly reflecting the cognitive skills of Papua New Guinean children. Like the conservation data, studies of classification skills suggest that as Papua New Guinean children enter higher levels of education, they perform at higher cognitive levels. For instance, Jones (1973b) found that with older students, 16- to 19-year-old grade-11 and university preliminary year students, more than 30% reached a solution on the Olson bulb board using an analytic strategy. That is, they were demon­ strating hypothetico-deductive thinking. However, a much smaller num­ ber were successful with an analogous flap board task. This suggests again that the specific task situation may readily obscure the cognitive skills of Papua New Guinean students. Another test situation used by Jones (1974) involved Venn diagrams. Students were questioned to see whether they understood the way in which sets were divided into sub-sets with the diagrams used, or were asked to construct their own diagrams based on everyday concepts. In

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the former task, groups of older students from grades 11 and 12 and from preliminary year at The University of Papua New Guinea achieved near perfect scores, which indicates a degree of cognitive development towards analytical thought. However, they were very poor at actually constructing Venn diagrams. The author concluded that the students were not fully comprehending the problem. It would seem that on many classification tasks the performance of Papua New Guinean students is lower than that which might be expected in Western children, but the data suggest that like such children, Papua New Guinean children's problem-solving skills develop with education. With sufficient education in appropriate concepts, they may eventually achieve levels of test performance similar to those of Western children. This view is supported by Lancy's (1978) data which showed that several Papua New Guinean groups obtained higher scores for classifi­ cation in a free recall test than a highly selected group of foreign children (mostly Australian), and that the Papua New Guinean group which most closely matched the foreign children in terms of socioeconomic level and educational background was actually superior in several cognitive tasks. A major problem, in considering studies of classification skills in Papua New Guinea, is that some of the larger scale studies have been seriously flawed in the reporting. There were serious errors in the presentation of data in Philp and Kelly's 1974 paper (for example, graph 2 was incorrectly labelled or drawn in three separate sections, and the text contradicted the graph), and the 1977 paper presented data on the classification of words, supposedly from a subset of the subjects in the earlier paper, which were totally different from the earlier paper and could not possibly have come from the same subjects. On the equivalence of objects task, the 1977 paper claimed an enormous difference in use of the transitional/functional mode between a photo­ graphs task and a words task (about 90% compared with 20%), though the 1974 paper showed no such effect for the Papua New Guinean samples described. In that paper a Papua New Guinean schooled group and a village group both used transitional/functional bases of categori­ zation between 70% and 100% of the time, no matter whether they were in grade 1, 4, or 6, and regardless of whether they were tested using words or photographs. It is not possible that any major subgroup of children taken from this initial sample could perform as differently on photographs and words as was claimed in the 1977 paper. These

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discrepancies led Philp and Kelly to contradictory conclusions. Thus it is difficult to know how seriously to take the data reported. The research on Papua New Guinean children's classificatory abil­ ities suggests that sometimes performance is lower than, or at least different from, English speaking Australian children. While some re­ searchers have done as much to cloud as to clarify the situation, there have been some interesting questions raised about the appropriateness of various task situations for eliciting responses truly indicative of children's cognitive capacities. These questions might well be asked in other cultural contexts. It is clear that children in the higher levels of the education system are more capable of and more likely to use, symbolic, analytical strategies for classification on at least some tasks, than younger children with less formal schooling. These conclusions are consistent with those derived from the conservation studies. Education, age, and the language of testing Children tested by Piaget came from societies where virtually all children go to school. In Papua New Guinea only about 70% of children enter primary school, and .30% of these reach secondary school. Thus we have the opportunity to examine conservation, and other aspects of concrete operations abilities, in schooled and unschooled children. Comparisons of schooled and unschooled groups by Kelly and Philp (Kelly 1971a, b, 1977; Kelly and Philp 1975; Philp and Kelly 1974, 1977) indicated that there was no change in conservation over age levels in unschooled children. Often the statistical significance of dif­ ferences between schooled and unschooled at different age levels was not clearly indicated in these reports, yet the findings seemed consistent enough to suggest to the authors that schooling was necessary for concrete operations to appear in a majority of any given age group. Lancy's (1978) study compared schooled and unschooled children on a number of tasks including a Length conservation task. Samples of older Kewa (Southern Highlands) school children performed better than unschooled children, and amongst unschooled Kewa and Manus children there were large and significant improvements with age. Simi­ lar findings occurred with the other test situations used. This data contradicts Kelly and Philp's findings, and suggests that schooling may not, after all, be necessary for concrete operations to appear on a wide scale.

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Other comparisons of schooled and unschooled children in the Golke (Western Highlands) area, and the Gulf Province, reported by Lancy (1978), indicated differences between the groups on several cognitive tasks, with the school children doing somewhat better. Lancy made further comparisons between Melpa school children in the Muglamp area where Philp and Kelly (1974) had collected data, and nearby Golke school children, and suggested that the marked superiority of the former group (e.g. 88% conserved length vs 13% of Golke children) might be attributable to the better quality of the schooling situation. As Lancy points out, other studies of cognition and formal schooling (see review by Cole 1977) have ignored the school quality factor entirely. Paradoxically, the data on conservation reported by Shea and Yerua (1980) and Shea et al. (1981; 1983) for schooled groups in various cultures, showed increases in conservation by age within school grades (i.e. independently of school grade) in some cases, as well as school grade effects within age groups. There were also interactions between these two variables. Thus older children in the higher grades often performed best of all on various conservation tasks. Thus in several studies schooling has been associated with an increased ability to solve concrete operations tasks, but the precise nature of the effective vari­ ables is yet to be determined, and formal schooling may not be necessary for the development of concrete operations. Another important issue is the possibility that Papua New Guinean students may move from one strategy for classification to another depending on the language that they are using. Kelly and Philp (1975) examined classifications data from three groups of Melpa children, schooled children tested in English, schooled children tested in Melpa, and unschooled children tested in Melpa. Results were not clear-cut. With equivalence tasks, school children tested in English were better than school children tested in Melpa, but there was little difference between schooled and unschooled children tested in Melpa. With class-inclusion tasks, the results depended on the testing procedure. When children were asked to sort photographs, the effects of language of testing were less pronounced, but there was a schooling effect. When children were asked to identify and classify objects, the English tested school children performed better than the Melpa tested school children, and the latter performed better than the village children tested in Melpa. This study by Kelly and Philp suggests that children may use

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different kinds of strategies for classification according to the language in which they are tested, and the schooling they have had, and that these factors may be revealed differently in tasks which supposedly measure the same qualities.The first point is probably the most signifi­ cant for cognitive theorists for it seems to indicate that some languages are better for coping with the kinds of ideas which are important in our school systems. Kelly and Philp argue (after Bruner) that the child's view of the world is mediated, perhaps to some extent even determined, by the language he speaks, and simply using a different language may produce quite a different approach to problem solving in bilingual children. Some of Lancy's (1978) findings are relevant to this question. Firstly, he observed that in classifying objects, Papua New Guinean children showed a capacity for forming groups that were consistent with their cultures' system of classification even before they could provide the abstract basis (the name of the group) for the grouping. Such effects seem consistent with Kelly and Philp's (1975) views. However, a second observation by Lancy was not. He used tests of counting in the area vernacular, and in English. He noted that all children counted better in English than in the vernacular, though the difference between the two was greater for some cultures than for others. Furthermore, there were large differences between language-culture groups in performance on various cognitive tests though their ability to count in English was identical, and differences in vernacular systems of counting seemed unrelated to cognitive performance. Thus neither the availability of a superior vernacular code for dealing with the manipulation of number, nor the learning of a new English code seemed to influence perfor­ mance on numerically based tasks or cognitive tasks less dependent on number skills. Similarly, the work on conservation by Shea and Yerua (1980) and Shea et al. (1981 and 1983) showed no evidence of improvement in the relative performance of different language-culture groups after several years of exposure to the supposedly superior code, the English lan­ guage. It may be that tasks based on language, Western-oriented classification tasks using words, for example, will be more susceptible to the kinds of effects Kelly and Philp described. If so, there is no need to postulate some more profound role of mediation through language to describe the data we have.

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Cultural differences Kelly (1971a), and Philp and Kelly (1977) drew attention to differences between Papua New Guinean groups related to language and culture. In both of these reports it was noted that Goilala children performed relatively poorly on a variety of tasks compared with other groups. Cultural differences seemed to be greater than schooling differences. Obviously this is of considerable importance since it raises the possibil­ ity that environmental differences between Papua New Guinean groups exist which are powerful enough (and therefore probably recognizable) to produce profound differences in children's conservation perfor­ mance. Identification of factors determining the relative superiority of some groups would be of considerable theoretical and practical signifi­ cance. Lancy's (1978) study also indicated differences between languageculture groups within Papua New Guinea on various cognitive tasks, though the numbers within particular groups were sometimes rather small for firm conclusions. In general, this data showed that mountain dwelling children (Kewa, Jimi, Golke, Tauade) performed less success­ fully at Length conservation than coastal children (Moveave, Kilenge, Mondok, Ponam). While there were two exceptions to this (88% of children from Muglamp in the Western Highlands Province, and 3% of Mahwauke children from the Madang Province on the North Coast conserved length), the first of these may have occurred because of the extraordinary quality of the schooling provided. Differences between mountain peoples and coastal dwellers were not quite as clear-cut in other measures of cognitive abilities, and Lancy preferred an explana­ tion for differences between cultural groups that emphasized cultural complexity rather than broader features of the physical environment. Lancy found indications that the richness of the technologies in use in different cultures was related to cognitive performance. Furthermore, his data suggested that a generally enriched environment, comparable to Western European living environments was associated with cognitive advancement, while environmental impoverishment, as characterized by squatter settlements in Port Moresby, was associated with cognitive retardation, by comparison with many village environments. On measures of Number, Length, Quantity and Area, Shea and colleagues (1980; 1981; and 1983) found significant differences between language-culture groups. Overall coastal Madang and Buin children

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performed consistently well, and Western Highlands and Morobe groups (mountain dwellers) did poorly. This is not as consistent with Lancy's data as might seem at first. The data made it clear that a language-cul­ ture group could perform extremely poorly on one task while doing well on another. For example, the two Southern Highlands groups (Kewa and Imbonggu children) were bottom scorers on Quantity conservation, scoring very poorly indeed, but were top scorers on Length conserva­ tion. This kind of result would seem to preclude any general environ­ mental factor as a complete or even a substantial explanation for cross-cultural differences in performance. It suggests that some consid­ erable part of the explanation is to be found in more specific features of experience. Differences between the larger numbers of Kewa children tested in this study for Length conservation, and the children tested in Lancy's (1978) study also raise the prospect that the precise nature of the samples and the tests used may be very important in determining a conservation response. This is consistent with evidence from other parts of the world, particularly from less developed countries (e.g. Cole et al. 1971; Price-Williams et al. 1969). These studies of cognitive behaviour in Papua New Guinean children suggest differences compared with .children from more developed coun­ tries, in the use of cognitive strategies, classification systems for exam­ ple, which are important in the classroom. Some of the researchers involved have suggested that it might help to begin in the classroom with ways of dealing with the world that are familiar to the child. In fact, the research evidence gives no clear directions for solutions to the difficulties observed. In Western societies also it is to be expected that children will bring only the simplest cognitive skills to the classroom. Yet apparently they learn the new ways more easily than Papua New Guinean children. Part of the explanation may be in the poor physical environment that many Papua New Guineans experience. Lancy (1978) noted that 75% of one sample of children tested were malnourished by Papua New Guinea Department of Health standards, yet little attempt has been made to control for this variable in cognitive testing. The quality of the schooling 'experience', another virtually unexplored variable in Papua New Guinea, as in other developing countries, may add to the dif­ ferences in cognitive performance between Papua New Guinean groups. Lancy (1978) has shown that environmentally enriched groups of students, those whose standards of living and of schooling are little

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different from those of foreign children living in Papua New Guinea, perform equally well on cognitive tests compared to these children from industrialized societies. It is possible that the level of technological complexity that exists in different Papua New Guinean cultures, which may in turn be in­ fluenced by opportunities available in the general physical environ­ ment, influences children's cognitive performance, though systematic research has only just begun in this area. If cultural complexity is critical in intellectual development, it seems that village culture is more powerful than formal education culture since although schooling en­ hances cognitive performance, it is insufficient to overwhelm the in­ fluence of the early intellectual experience at least throughout primary school. That is, cultural differences in cognitive development remain even after years of schooling. The studies reviewed here indicate that there are great differences between Papua New Guinean groups in cognitive performance. They lead to the conclusion that a very close description of the age, school­ ing, environment and culture of children should be provided in studies of cognition. Papua New Guinea is characterized by great cultural diversity, thus general statements about cognitive development must be very cautious indeed. The data indicate that there are some groups of children in Papua New Guinea who perform similarly to Westerners on some cognitive tasks, but that there are many groups for whom there seems to be delay in cognitive development. It is the increasing per­ centage of children succeeding in various tasks at later ages (e.g. Shea and Yerua 1980; Shea et al. 1981 and 1983; Lancy 1978) which suggests a delay in development rather than a halt. Dasen (1972) suggested more than a delay when he referred to a small number of studies of conservation in Papua New Guinea (including those of Prince, 1968 and 1969, which according to the present analysis are of marginal relevance to the question), and concluded that Papua New Guinea can be categorized with those areas where conservation starts to develop at the same time or later than in Western European countries, but fails to go to completion, so that some children and adults may never achieve it. This statement had little support in research data when it was made. Now it is clearly untenable. Since there is still relatively little data from older schooled and unschooled children on Piagetian influenced tasks, it is still not possible to state with conviction that a majority in some groups never achieves full concrete operational thinking. Perhaps even

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in the poorest performing groups, complete concrete operational devel­ opment eventually occurs. In any case, there are many groups who do show continued development which may provide a sufficient basis for latter formal operational thought.

Formal thinking Although the phrase 'formal thinking' is usually associated with Piagetian theory, this discussion ranges a little further, including studies that have been influenced by Piaget's work but do not directly use his methods of investigation, and other research which is indeed to do with formal thinking, but attacks the question from a different theoretical framework. Piaget (1969) described the stage of formal operations, the most advanced level of thinking according to his analysis, as that stage in which individuals are able to formulate hypotheses and deduce what follows from them. Individuals are said to'reach this level as a result of continual cognitive experience at the concrete level, from which ab­ stractions of thought are eventually made. This stage is seen as qualita­ tively different from that which precedes it, not simply as a quantitative improvement in cognitive skills. It is on this latter point in particular that disagreements arise amongst those who are investigating the devel­ opment of thinking skills. It is a point that is of some importance, since, when taken alongside evidence from less developed countries (which often shows a failure to perform the formal operations tasks), it suggests a marked separation in the abilities of Western individuals and those from developing countries. Piaget and Inhelder (1958) did predict that formal operations might not be achieved by any individuals in some societies. It seems to create a gap, this qualitative difference, that many people are reluctant to accept. Munroe and Munroe (1975) accepted that as far as formal thought involves generalized problemsolving skill, which in turn is built on the ability to dissociate the operations performed from the problem, Piaget's views may be accepta­ ble. However, they rejected suggestions of qualitative difference, and proposed thinking of formal thought as 'a systematic application of the tools of mathematics, logic, and the experimental method' (1975: 88). These applications may not be learned by all people even in Western countries. For instance, Elkind (1961) has reported data showing that about half of U.S. adult subjects do not reach the level of formal

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operations as indicated by Piagetian tests. Thus, Munroe and Munroe conclude, 'it is probably inaccurate to propose that a relatively recent Western invention be treated as a discrete stage of thinking'. It is possible to sympathize with this viewpoint without being impressed by the historical analysis, and to accept that formal thinking may involve a heightening of some universal ability to use abstract concepts, reflecting a carefully developed skill at applying conceptual skills to a variety of new situations. Accordingly, what we are looking for here are those universal skills of abstraction. Although Berry (1974) seemed to believe that the abstract-concrete argument (about the thinking abilities of Westerners relative to those of people in developing countries) was reliably settled many years ago, the argument is alive and well. Taylor (1971) said that Pacific peoples were unable (speaking generally of course) to reason in the abstract, and Mulford and Young (1973) wrote a paper on cognitive development in Papua New Guinea which was solely concerned with demonstrating that only a tiny proportion of Papua New Guineans could practise abstract reasoning skills with any facility. They cited studies concerning the apparently poor performances of Papua New Guineans on concrete operations tasks (e.g. Kelly 1971a), achievement tasks (e.g. MacKay 1970), intelligence test type tasks (Hutton and Hicks 1971), language tests (Jones 1972), and other studies concerning the authoritarianism of school teachers, and the concrete nature of Papua New Guineans' values, supposedly showing the context-bound nature of Papua New Guineans' thinking. These data are consistent with data discussed earlier which indicated that there is some delay in the appearance of success on Piagetian tasks in many groups of Papua New Guinean students. But they go no further than this, and say nothing about formal thinking. Dasen (1972) considered a small set of evidence to conclude that there was no trace to be found of formal thought in Papua New Guinea. He spoke of trivial, generally unpublished studies, with tiny samples, taken from very limited areas, as if they carried some weight. For instance, speaking of evidence about formal operations, he said ' negative findings have been confirmed with different tests and samples in New Guinea'. One report referred to mentioned an attempt to test thirty 'older' school children using a pendulum test, in a group in which older means 15 years. Since the country had more than seven hundred different language groups, and customs ranging across almost the full

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gamut of human experience, it was absurd to make statements of this kind in view of the limited data available at the time. Unfortunately, though better evidence is now available, reviews of formal operations studies still refer to earlier studies from Papua New Guinea which do not adequately address the question of formal operational thought. Price-Williams (1981) cites the flawed Philp and Kelly (1974) paper as evidence of the absence of formal operational thought in that country. We need something better than this before we start to speak authorita­ tively about formal operations in Papua New Guinea. The evidence discussed earlier on the issue of conservation may provide a useful starting point. This work suggested that conservation develops later in many Papua New Guinea groups amongst school children, and that the delay increases as the difficulty of the conserva­ tion task increases. However, the data suggested that almost all students found in the upper levels of the secondary education system could conserve quantity at least, (Jones 1973a and 1973b), and that some groups could conserve other physical properties as well. This compares well with some studies in Western countries which do not show such impressive figures (e.g. Towler and Wheatley 1971). If children can achieve conservation, it follows in Piaget's theory, that, after sufficient exposure to specific instances of conservation and other events associ­ ated with the stage of concrete operations, they will achieve the level of formal operations. Only if they do not achieve concrete operations should there be any barrier to their further cognitive development. Thus we might conclude that if we were to take adult Papua New Guineans from the higher levels of the secondary school system, or from the tertiary system, we should be able to observe formal operational thought beginning to develop in a substantial proportion of them. There are very few studies of formal operational thought in Papua New Guinea even now. A study by Kelly (1971a), already referred to, was done in conjunction with a number of conservation tests. In all, 30 children were tested, but as none could solve the pendulum problem, testing did not continue. It is surprising that at least some of the earlier conservers had not achieved the level of formal operations. Perhaps they were caught at an intermediate stage, or perhaps as Kelly sug­ gested the results may have been due to an inability to communicate what was needed in the test. In a later paper, Philp and Kelly (1974) referred to an unpublished study by Jones and Kelly (1972) with a secondary school group in

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which an electrical analogue of the four chemical test (Piaget and Inhelder 1969) was used. Jones and Kelly could not find any children who could solve the task though no indication is given of how many were tested, what age they were, or what their conservation perfor­ mance was. Philp and Kelly (1974) attempted to use the pendulum task once again, this time with 432 Papua New Guinean children aged from 7 up to 20 years of age. Since the 15 + group was taken from grade 6, we might expect that most of these children would have been closer to 15 than to 20 years of age. Once again no children were found who could solve this particular task. This seems strange since many of them could conserve quantity and length, but again we might speculate that the children were at a stage between concrete operations and formal operations. The possibility arises of course that the Piagetian analysis is not adequate and that as Munroe and Munroe (1975) suggest the appearance of full formal operations on the Piagetian tests requires specific rule learning. John Jones (1973a, 1973b, 1974) is one of the few researchers to have examined the cognitive development of Papua New Guinean students in their late teens, those who are at the latter end of the 'stage' of concrete operations. In a study in 1973(a), Jones examined ability to deal with the concepts of ratio and proportion, since these concepts appear to give Papua New Guinean students considerable difficulty, and in the study of science in particular they are of extreme impor­ tance. Jones (1973a) used test items developed by Lovell and Butterworth (1966), but modified them so that they could be used as pencil and paper tests with large groups of students. At first Jones collected responses from 71 preliminary year (about grades 11 to 12) students at the University of Papua New Guinea. Performance was generally poor, hardly ever getting above the 30% success mark, except for verbal analogies (better than 80% success), though proportionality scores cor­ related with academic performance. In fact, this was the first test evidence that Papua New Guinean students are capable of formal operational thought. A later study by Jones reported in the same paper was more extensive, involving upper secondary and tertiary students in Papua New Guinea, and samples of British students. Jones used a wide variety of tasks requiring understanding of the concept of proportion and hypothetico-deductive reasoning. On two out of the four deductive logic problems, some of the Papua New Guinean groups scored as well

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or better than the younger British group. On the proportion problems the British group performed better than any of the Papua New Guinean groups in every case, though the scores were often fairly close, and probably not significantly different from the top-scoring Papua New Guinean groups. It seems clear enough that the older and educationally more highly selected Papua New Guinean groups were able to use formal thought in general logical problems as well as, or better than, the British group. They were able to deal with the non-verbal propor­ tionality concepts at almost the same level, but they performed con­ sistently less well than, but usually not dramatically differently from, the comparison group, on verbally expressed proportionality problems. The conservation data mentioned earlier leads to the expectation that Papua New Guinean groups will not perform at a formal operations level until about six years later than Western groups. This is what Jones' data show. The British group he used for comparison was not a highly selected group, and this may account for the fact that they did not enjoy quite the measure of advantage over the Papua New Guinean students that might have been expected. The apparent ability of the Papua New Guinean group on deductive reasoning tasks seems to confirm, observations made by Hutton and Hicks (1971), and Bowlay (1972), which indicated that on abstract reasoning tasks, where the verbal content was reduced, Papua New Guineans were able to perform as well as Australians. In Jones' study there was one group, the University of Technology group, which was allowed extra time to deal with the problems set. They performed better than other Papua New Guinean groups, probably because of the extra time. It was reported by Ord (1970), and Hutton and Hicks (1971) that this procedure usually allows Papua New Guinean students to produce scores more like Western students. This factor related to the pressure of the test situation seems to determine whether or not we find evidence of formal thought in Papua New Guineans. Solving problems slowly is not sufficient reason for disqualification from the ranks of formal oper­ ational thinkers. This data does not contradict the data that Kelly (1971a) reported, though it contradicts the conclusions that others have been ready to draw from them. Clearly Kelly's small test group was too young or too little educated (in the broadest sense of that word) to have achieved formal operational thought. In a second part of his report Jones (1973b) described an individual

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testing programme involving a smaller number of students (119), but using tasks which were often Piagetian in origin, or Piagetian inspired. One task used by Jones, involved 'combinatorial thinking'. This was the test referred to earlier in the mention of the unpublished paper by Jones and Kelly (1972), an electrical analogue of the four chemical test, which failed to indicate formal thinking with a group of secondary school children. Another test Jones used was the balance problem as described by Piaget. Here subjects were classified according to whether they solved the balance task with merely qualitative, or quantitative explana­ tions. The final task used was a black box version of the balance problem, the 'Wheatstone Bridge'. An electrical dial was used in the centre to indicate a 'balance' situation, electrical resistors took the place of weights, and a length of wire variable was used in place of distance from the fulcrum. Of the preliminary year and grade 11 students, 37% solved the combinatorial thinking problem at the highest level of solution, and more than 40% of these students solved the beam balance problem at the most complete level of formal operational thinking. It should be noted that this particular task is of middling difficulty amongst formal operational tasks; it is not an easy test. Furthermore, this level of success compares well with some Western data (Lovell 1961; Dale 1970; McKinnon and Renner 1971). The performance on the Wheatstone Bridge was not nearly so successful, though the concept was embedded in the task in the same way. Thus Jones' study showed a significant proportion of students from higher levels in the formal education system solving problems at the formal operation level, though the nature of the test task powerfully affected performance. Wilson and Wilson (1983) used group testing procedures, as devel­ oped by Shayer et al. (1976), for formal operations tasks inspired by Piaget. They found considerable differences in performance between a Pendulum task and a Chemical Combinations task (the latter seemed more difficult), and their data suggested a somewhat lower level of formal operations than Jones' studies. Of course this may have been influenced by the differences in the tasks, or the inevitable imprécisions of the group testing procedure. One observation that was entirely consistent with Jones' data, and with other observations described here, was that there was a strong indication of a steady development of formal operational thought as age and educational level advanced. Sixty-seven percent of a small group of fourth year university students

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solved the Pendulum task at the formal operations level. One major factor affecting Papua New Guinean students in formal logic tasks has been suggested by research by Argent (1972). Argent investigated hypothetico-deductive reasoning in Papua New Guinea tertiary students using cause and effect statements of the 'if p then q' type, providing additional information that was consistent or incon­ sistent with each part of the statements. The pattern of errors indicated that subjects were interpreting conditional statements as biconditionals. Argent noted that this has been reported in English children before the stage of formal operations, though she also considered other evidence (e.g. Argent 1971) which indicated that errors in syllogistic reasoning, including biconditionality, may be related to unfamiliarity of the material. It may also be related to fundamental difficulties with En­ glish. Jones (1972) described the problem of biconditionality that Argent mentioned, but he referred to it in the context of a study of the comprehension of commonly used English words. Any items which involved conditionality at all gave problems to Papua New Guinean students, for example the word 'whenever'. Argent's study serves to caution us that in-depth examination of logical argument may reveal a different picture from that which we see on the surface. It also raises again the question about the language interference effects suffered by Papua New Guineans. However, the preceding discussion of evidence reported by Jones, makes it clear that on a series of group and individual measures of formal thinking, large numbers of Papua New Guineans were capable of thinking at a formal level. Indeed the research so far has not yet tested enough people who are in the age groups where we might expect to find formal operations. The picture we have is one of considerable delay in cognitive develop­ ment, but the indications are that Papua New Guineans, exposed to a formal education system, develop formal thinking skills in the same way as groups Piaget and Inhelder have described. Conclusion The studies which have been examined here concern efforts at testing Papua New Guineans' performance on tasks which are mostly foreign to customary ways. However, Papua New Guinean children, especially school children, could be said to live in two cultures, the traditional village one, and that new one from the outside world. The testing

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procedures are not alien to the encroaching 'Western' culture, most clearly represented in the form of a formal education system which is spreading in its influence on the peoples' lives. The tests are, in fact, indicators of acculturation, of the ability of Papua New Guineans to adapt to the new culture. By and large, testing has been carried out with this very idea in mind, with a view to determining how successfully students can deal with some educationally related tasks from the new culture which they are embracing. Thus questions of the equivalence of concepts have not been ignored so much as side-stepped. Many of those who have passed judgement about the capacities of Papua New Guineans with respect to educationally relevant problem solving, have done so from the restricted vantage point which inade­ quate research data provide. We have enough evidence now to make some firm conclusions about the potential of Papua New Guineans for solving intellectual problems from the outside world. Clearly the perfor­ mance of Papua New Guineans is hampered, in the schoolroom and in the test situation, by language difficulties, and differences of tempera­ ment. Furthermore, this review has repeatedly drawn attention to inconsistencies between tests supposedly measuring the same cognitive skills, and to the difficulties of interpreting data collected. The possibil­ ity arises that Papua New Guineans do have different patterns of mental abilities from outsiders, though these patterns are as yet largely unspecified. (Though of course the problems referred to may just as well be indicators of the unreliability and lack of validity of some of the test procedures.) Nevertheless, it seems likely that most of those educated Papua New Guineans who reach higher levels of schooling will also reach the level of concrete operations in problem solving tasks, and that (as elsewhere) a majority of those selected into the highest levels of educational organization will eventually achieve the highest levels of formal thinking. The age levels at which these stages are reached are different from those in the West at the present time, for reasons we can only speculate about, but are likely to become more like them as Papua New Guinea changes. A more difficult issue concerns the differences that exist within Papua New Guinea. It seems that large differences occur, though data is still inadequate, and that they persist even with education. Discovery of the factors which underlie these differences is a major task of future research and may lead to insights into the development of problem solving which have universal applica­ tions.

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References Argent, S.M., 1971. A preliminary hypothesis about illicit converse acceptance and how to reduce it. Unpublished Ph.D. thesis materials, University of Wales, Cited in S.M. Argent (1972). Argent, S.M., 1972. Hypothetico-deductive reasoning in Papua New Guinea students at the tertiary level. New Guinea Psychologist, Monograph Supplement No. 4, 1-12. Berry, J.W., 1969. On cross-cultural comparability. International Journal of Psychology 4, 119-128. Berry, J.W., 1974, 'History and method in the cross-cultural study of cognition'. In: J.W. Berry and P.R. Dasen (eds.), Culture and cognition: readings in cross-cultural psychology. London: Methuen. Berry, J.W. and P.R. Dasen, 1974. Culture and cognition: readings in cross-cultural psychology. London: Methuen. Bowlay, D.S., 1970. Cross-cultural comparison of performance on a non-verbal intelligence test. Paper presented to ANZAAS Congress, Port Moresby. Bowlay, D.S., 1972. Cross-cultural intelligence testing: an aid to industry in a developing country. New Guinea Psychologist 4, 9-16. Cole, M., 1977. The cognitive consequences of education: an ethnographic-psychological perspec­ tive. Institute for Comparative Human Development, Rockefeller University, Working Paper No. 8. Cole, M.J., J. Gay, J.A. Glick and D.W. Sharp, 1971. The cultural context of learning and thinking. London: Methuen. Dale, L.G., 1970. The growth of systematic thinking: replication and analysis of Piaget's four chemical experiment. Australian Journal of Psychology 22, 277-286. Dasen, P.R., 1972. Cross-cultural Piagetian research: a summary. Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology 3, 23-40. Elkind, D., 1961. The development of quantitative thinking: a systematic replication of Piaget's studies. Journal of Genetic Psychology 98, 37-46. Elkind, D., 1962. Quantity conceptions in college students. Journal of Social Psychology 57, 459-465. Goodwin, D.C., 1970. Mathematical thinking in the preliminary year. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 6, 6-11. Hicks, R.E., 1970. The quality of psychological tests in Papua New Guinea: a preliminary statement. New Guinea Psychologist 2, 40-45. Hicks, R.E., 1971. Manual for the Pacific verbal and numerical reasoning test. Psychological Services Branch, Department of the Public Service Board, Port Moresby. Hicks, R.E. and D.W. Bowlay, 1974. Some comparative validation figures in predicting initial success in technical studies: a note. New Guinea Psychologist 6, 110-113. Hutton, M.A. and R.E. Hicks, 1971. Comparison between test performances of Papua New Guinean and Australian expatriate students. New Guinea Psychologist 3, 88-94. Jones, J., 1972. Comprehension of some commonly used words. A study with tertiary students in Papua New Guinea. Educational Research Unit Report, No. 4, University of Papua New Guinea. Jones, J., 1973a. The concept of proportionality as a predictor of success at the University of Papua New Guinea. Educational Research Unit Research Report No. 6, University of Papua New Guinea. Jones, J., 1973b. Cognitive studies with students in Papua New Guinea. Educational Research Unit Report 10, University of Papua New Guinea. Jones, J., 1974. Quantitative concepts, classification systems, vernacular, and education in Papua New Guinea. Educational Research Unit Report No. 19, University of Papua New Guinea. Jones, J. and M.R. Kelly, 1972. Formal operations in a sample of Papua New Guinea children. Unpublished manuscript, Macquarie University, School of Education.

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Kelly, M., 1971a. Some aspects of conservation of quantity and length in Papua New Guinea in relation to language, sex, and years of school. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 7, 55-60. Kelly, M., 1971b. A two-criteria classification matrix with some Papua New Guinea children. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 7, 46-49. Kelly, M., 1977. 'Papua New Guinea and Piaget - an eight-year study'. In: P.R. Dasen (ed.), Piagetian psychology, cross-cultural contributions. New York: Gardener Press, pp. 169-202. Kelly, M. and H. Philp, 1975. Vernacular test instructions in relation to cognitive task behaviour among highlands children of Papua New Guinea. British Journal of Educational Psychology 45, 189-197. Lancy, D.F., 1977. The indigenous mathematics project. A progress report. Papua New Guinea Linguistic Society Conference, Lae. Lancy, D.F., 1978. Cognitive testing in the indigenous mathematics project. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 14 (special issue), 114-142. Lewis, G. and W.R. Mulford, 1974. Conservation of time amongst Papua New Guinea school children: an exploratory study. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education, 10, 18-38. Lovell, K., 1961. A follow-up study of Inhelder and Piaget's 'the growth of logical thinking'. British Journal of Psychology 52, 143-153. Lovell, L. and J.B. Butterworth, 1966. Abilities underlying the understanding of proportionality. Mathematics Teaching 37, 5-9. MacKay, L.D., 1969. Performance of T.P.N.G. students on a test of readiness for further studies in Physics. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 6, 58-69. MacKay, L.D., 1970. Understanding of the nature of science of some teachers' college students in the Territory of Papua New Guinea. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 6, 72-73. McKinnon, J.W. and J. Renner, 1971. Are colleges concerned with intellectual development? American Journal of Physics 39, 1047-1052. Mulford, W.R. and R.E Young, 1973. Cognitive -studies in Papua New Guinea. New Guinea Psychologist, Monograph Supplement No. 5. Munroe, R.L. and R.H. Munroe, 1975. Cross-cultural human development. Monterey, CA: Brooks-Cole Publishing Company. Ord, J.G., 1959. The development of a test of cognitive capacity for indigenes of Papua and New Guinea. Unpublished M.A. thesis, University of Queensland. Ord, J.G., 1967. The New Guinea performance scale and its educational uses. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 5, 7-16. Ord, J.G., 1968a. The Pacific design construction test and manual. Melbourne: Australia Council for Educational Research. Ord, J.G., 1968b. The PIR test and derivatives. Australian Psychologist 2, 137-146. Ord, J.G., 1970. Mental tests for preliterates, resulting mainly from New Guinea studies. London: Ginn. Ord, J.G., 1971a. Psychological test programmes and school certificate and university preliminary year results: some findings in Papua New Guinea. Psychological Services Branch Research Report No. 2. Port Moresby: Government Printers. Ord, J.G., 1971b. Assessing the cognitive capacities of non-literate New Guinea adults. New Guinea Psychologist, Monograph Supplement No. 3. Ord, J.G., 1972. Testing for educational and occupational selection in developing countries. Occupational Psychology 46, 122-182. Ord, J.G. and J. Schofield, 1969. An infant performance scale. A prospective test for use at school entry. New Guinea Psychologist 1, 18-20. Ord, J.G. and J. Schofield, 1970. Pacific infants performance scale and manual. Port Moresby: T.P.N.G. Government Printer.

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Philp, H. and M. Kelly, 1974. Product and process in cognitive development: some comparative data on the performance of school age children in different cultures. British Journal of Educational Psychology 44, 248-265. Philp, H. and M. Kelly, 1977. Cognitive development in Papua New Guinea: some comparative data. Australian Journal of Education 21, 256-267. Piaget, J., 1974. 'Need and significance of cross-cultural studies in genetic psychology'. In: J.W. Berry and P.R. Dasen (eds.), Culture and cognition: readings in cross-cultural psychology. London: Methuen. Piaget, J. and B. Inhelder, 1958. The growth of logical thinking from childhood to adolescence. New York: Basic Books. Piaget, J. and B. Inhelder, 1969. The psychology of the child. New York: Basic Books. Price, J.R., 1978. Cognitive development in Papua New Guinea: a survey of conservation research. International Journal of Psychology 13, 1-24. Price, J.R. and J. Nidue, 1974. Conservation of area: a quantitative study. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 5, 17-65. Price-Williams, D.R., 1981. 'Concrete and formal operations'. In: R.H. Munroe, R.L. Munroe and Beatrice B. Whiting (eds.), Handbook of cross-cultural human development. New York: Garland Press. Price-Williams, D.R., W. Gordon and R.M. Ramirez, 1969. Skill and conservation, a study of pottery-making children. Development Psychology 1, 790. Prince, J.R., 1968. The effect of Western education on science conceptualization in New Guinea. British Journal of Educational Psychology 68, 64-74. Prince, J.R., 1969. Science concepts in a Pacific culture. Sydney: Angus and Robertson Ltd. Rawlinson, B., 1974. A cross-cultural study of intelligence in Papua New Guinea and Tasmania. New Guinea Psychologist, Monograph No. 6. Shayer, M., D.W. Kuchemann, and H. Wylam, 1976. The distribution of Piagetian stages of thinking in British middle and secondary school children. British Journal of Educational Psychology 46, 164-173. Shea, J.D. and G. Yerua, 1980. Conservation in community school children in the Western Highlands of Papua New Guinea. International Journal of Psychology 15, 11-25. Shea, J.D., B. Bagara and M. Ogaiea, 1983. Conservation in community school children from the Madang, Southern Highlands, and North Solomons Provinces of Papua New Guinea. Interna­ tional Journal of Psychology 18, 203-214. Shea, J.D., E. Butana and A. Zeming, 1981. Conservation in community school children from the Milne Bay and Morobe Provinces of Papua New Guinea. International Journal of Psychology 16, 45-57. Taylor, J.W., 1971. Problems of educational testing in Pacific Island Territories. New Guinea Psychologist 3, 13-19. Towler, J.O. and G.J. Wheatley, 1971. Conservation concepts in college students: a replication and critique. Journal of Genetic Psychology 118, 265-270. Wilson, M. and A. Wilson, 1983. Formal thought among pre-tertiary students in PNG. Papua New Guinea Journal of Education 19(2), 1-11. Wolfers, E.P., 1969. Do New Guineans count? Institute of Current World Affairs Newsletter EPW-18, 1-20,

Cet article passe en revue des recherches qui s'occupent des capacités qu'ont les habitants de Papouasie Nouvelle Guinée (papous) à résoudre des problèmes. Nous avons examiné des études qui concernent des tests individuels d'intelligence, des tests collectifs d'intelligence, des tests de performance, des mesures de conservation, la capacité de faire des classifications et la pensée

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opérationnelle abstraite. Nous avons discuté des données qui comparent les niveaux de perfor­ mance des papous, enfants et adultes, avec ceux des individus d'ailleurs et avec ceux d'étrangers résidant en P.-N.-G. De même nous avons remarqué à l'intérieur même de la P.-N.-G. des différences importantes liées en particulier à l'expérience scolaire et aussi au groupe linguistique et culturel. En contraste avec quelques-unes des conclusions antérieures sur les capacités cognitives des papous, nous avons conclu que tout en acceptant qu'il existe des différences au plan de la performance de la résolution de problèmes entre quelques groupes en P.-N.-G. et des groupes de pays anglophones, les modes de développement paraissent néanmoins semblables. Il s'ensuit que les papous qui ont reçu une éducation atteignent à la longue les niveaux les plus élevés de la pensée abstraite.

Studies of cognitive development in papua new Guinea.

This paper reviews research dealing with problem solving abilities amongst Papua New Guineans. Studies concerned with individual intelligence tests, g...
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