Inhelder and Piaget's 1958 pendulum problem requires children to isolate the factors responsible for the frequency of oscillation of a pendulum. Examination of the original study and subsequent descriptions of the study indicates that terms which have precise meaning for the physics of the simple pendulum have been used in an inconsistent and inaccurate way. The confusion of terms makes it difficult to know what children are measuring when they attempt to solve the pendulum problem. The perpetuation of these misunderstandings in textbooks is discussed.
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