ABSTRACT
Change in cognitive development is a dialectical process of synthesizing the equilibrium and disequilibrium conditions of each progenitor stage. Thus, cognitive development consists of a sequence of stages in progress. This chapter focuses on the current findings on integrative relations within a single system, that of operative functional structures. Two complementary strategies are used to analyze integrative transformational interaction. The first consists of detailed comprehensive analyses of the components making up the reasoning produced by subjects about a given problem. The aim is twofold. The first is to discover internal disequilibrium, as well as equilibrium, between these components. The second is to determine whether there are any conceptual transformative consequences of such self-generated discordance. The second, complementary research strategy consists of experimental simulation of internal integration of possible transformations in order to determine whether they produce conceptual progress in subjects.
