According to Piaget, what are the primary characteristics of adolescent formal operational

thought?  How did he assess such thinking?

What will be an ideal response?

According to Piaget, formal operational thought is the ability to understand associations
between different variables or events in complex ways. For example, when using
multiple ideas or variables to explain an outcome, the formal thinker can consider how
these ideas work together to produce an effect, as well as understand how they work in
isolation of one another. Adolescent thought is also marked by advanced propositional
reasoning and adolescents are capable of theoretical, hypothetical-deductive reasoning.
To assess such thinking, Piaget constructed the pendulum problem, in which, children
were asked to indicate how the speed of an object is affected by its weight, arc, and
string length.