Chapter 6: Piagets Theory of Cognitive Development

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Chapter 6 Piagets Theory of Cognitive
Development

• 6.1 General Principles of Piagets Theory
• 6.2 Piagets Four Stages of Cognitive Development
• 6.3 Evaluating Piagets Theory
• 6.4 Beyond Piagets Theory

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Piaget

• Piaget wanted to bridge a gap between science and
  philosophy
• He wanted to study problems of knowledge using
  the scientific method
• He finished his formal training in biology and
  then accepted a job in the Binet Lab

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Piaget

• His job was to develop a standardized version of
  a reasoning test
• Piaget found that he was more interested in the
  reasons underlying the incorrect answers
• He wanted to focus on the childs thought
  processes

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Piaget

• Piaget began studying changes in the process of
  knowing and the organization of knowledge
• He felt knowledge is a process rather than a
  state
• A person constructs knowledge and has an active
  part in the process

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Piaget

• People actively select and interpret information
  in the environment
• One implication - Knowledge is Biased
• experience is always filtered through a persons
  current ways of understanding
• Piagets definition of intelligence is

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Piaget

• Adaptation to the environment
• Piaget said that the nature of mental structures
  changes as they develop
• Piaget claims that cognitive development proceeds
  through a series of stages

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Piaget

• Stages are age related and consist of distinct
  ways of understanding the world
• stages are qualitatively different in types of
  thought processes (changes in type or kind)
• each stage derives from a previous stage
• stages are invariant and universal

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6.1 General Principles of Piagets Theory

• Biological Tendencies
• Assimilation and Accommodation
• Equilibration and Stages of Cognitive Development
• Schemes

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Biological Tendencies

• Organization - the tendency for behaviors or
  thoughts to be grouped into a higher order more
  smoothly functioning system
• Adaptation - the interaction between the organism
  and the environment

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Adaptation

• In assimilation, new experiences are readily
  incorporated into existing schemes.
• In accommodation, existing schemes must be
  modified to incorporate new information.

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Equilibration

• Assimilation and accommodation are usually in
  balance.
• Periodically, schemes prove to be inadequate and
  are massively reorganized. Equilibration is the
  drive to a new state of balance.
• Metaphor of child as scientist.
• Three changes produce 4 stages.

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Schemes

• Schemes are like categories they organize
  experience and knowledge.
• Schemes first based on actions, then functions,
  and conceptions.

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6.2 Piagets Four Stages of Cognitive Development

• The Sensorimotor Stage
• The Preoperational Stage
• The Concrete Operational Stage
• The Formal Operational Stage

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The Sensorimotor Stage

• From birth to approximately 2 years.
• Divided into six substages that begin with reflex
  action and end with the child as a symbol user.

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Piaget

• Sensorimotor development is through use of the
  senses motor activity
• Adaptive behavior in this stage moves from reflex
  actions at birth to goal-directed behavior at
  18-24 months of age.
• The child also gains Object Permanence and
  Deferred Imitation.

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The Preoperational Stage

• Lasts from approximately 2 to 7 years of age and
  is prelogical.
• Children can use symbols (language) but have many
  weaknesses in their thinking
• Egocentrism- able to see from only their own
  perspective
• Centration- tendency to focus on one one
  perceptual aspect at a time

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Preoperational

• Appearance as reality inability to mentally
  record the process of change.

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The Concrete Operational Stage

• From 7 to 11 years.
• Thinking based on mental operations (logical,
  mathematical, spatial operations)
• Operations can be reversed.
• Limit focus on the real, not the abstract

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Piaget

• Concrete Operational - concrete logic
• Conservation of number, liquids, substance, etc.
• reasons - identity (havent added or taken away),
  compensation (changes cancel each other out),
  reversibility (change it back to what it was
  before)

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Piaget

• Classification - recognizing subclasses within
  classes
• Seriation - ordering of objects according to size
  or number
• Video - 3 children Andrew, Mathew, Adam

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The Formal Operational Stage

• Begins at about 11 and continues through
  adulthood.
• Children now able to think hypothetically and
  reason abstractly.

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Piaget

• Formal Operational - formal logic
• Abstract or hypothetical thinking allows
  adolescents to solve problems by creating
  hypotheses and testing them.
• They systematically consider all possibilities
  because they are freed from only considering what
  is real. Deductive reasoning is the ability to
  draw conclusions from facts.

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Adolescent Egocentrism

• Adolescent egocentrism, where the adolescent
  feels like everyone is focused on him/her. This
  is called imaginary audience.

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6.3 Evaluating Piagets Theory

• Applying Piagets Theory
• Criticisms of the Theory

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Piaget

• Implications for education
• True learning is not handed down but is a
  spontaneous process of discovery
• Teachers should be sensitive and flexible
• Learning should be tailored to the childs own
  stage of development

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Piaget

• Teachers should guide the childs spontaneous
  interests and be slightly ahead of his/her
  current level of thinking
• Cognitive growth is rapid when children discover
  errors inconsistencies in thinking
• Piaget saw educational value in social
  interactions

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Applying Piagets Theory

• Research supports the view of the active child
  trying to understand his/her world.
• There are also important qualitative changes in
  the organization of knowledge and the cognitive
  thought process.

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Some Criticisms

• There can be alternative accounts of performance
  on tasks based on the language development of the
  child.
• There is sometimes inconsistency in performance
  on tasks that have the same level of logical
  structure. However, there is higher correlation
  of performance on tasks when children are firmly
  in a stage.

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Criticisms

• Training Piagetian concepts should not be
  possible but researchers have shown that it is
  possible. (Conservation can be taught but is
  difficult to teach.)
• Actual level of thought is often different from
  the highest possible level of thinking.

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Piaget

• Piagets stages have held up well for
  sensorimotor, and scientific and mathematical
  reasoning for later stages in western
  civilizations.
• Concrete Operations has great potential value as
  a stage of cognitive development.
• Most adults do not demonstrate formal operational
  thinking - primarily only in areas of their own
  high interest or ability

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6.4 Beyond Piagets Theory

• Neo-Piagetian Approaches to Cognitive Development
• The Child as Theorist
• Vygotskys Theory of Cognitive Development

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Neo-Piagetian Approaches to Cognitive Development

• Retain Piagets basic claim of stages of
  intellectual development but reflect new research
  findings.
• Each child develops distinct conceptual
  structures reflecting experience and culture and
  vary from child to child.
• Working memory improves with age, allowing
  childrens thinking to become more complex and
  efficient.

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The Child as Theorist

• Builds on Piagets metaphor of child as
  scientist.
• Research traces childrens knowledge of naive
  physics (understanding basic properties of
  objects), naive psychology (theory of mind-a
  connection between thoughts, beliefs, and
  behavior), and naive biology (understanding
  unique properties of animate objects, e.g.,
  movement, growth, healing).

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Vygotskys Theory of Cognitive Development

• Three of Vygotskys important contributions
• the zone of proximal development (ZPD)
• scaffolding
• private speech

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Vygotsky

• Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist who saw
  development as an extension of culture and
  history. He died very young but his writings
  have since (more recently) contributed to our
  knowledge of learning and development of speech.

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ZPD

• The difference between what a child can do alone
  and what he/she can do with assistance from a
  more knowledgeable peer or adult is the Zone of
  Proximal Development.
• The ZPD follows from Vygotskys premise that
  cognition develops first in a social setting and
  then independently.

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Scaffolding

• Teaching that matches assistance to the learners
  needs. Parents scaffold learning but parents in
  different cultures scaffold in different ways.
• What are some examples?

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Private Speech

• Private speech is a running commentary children
  engage in to help regulate their own behavior.
• Vygotsky viewed private speech as an intermediate
  step toward self-regulation of cognitive skills.
• As children gain greater skill, private becomes
  inner speech.

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Speech

• Research supports the idea that if private speech
  controls behavior, then private speech should
  increase as the task becomes more difficult, and
  studies have shown that it does.
• Vygotskys work is further documentation of the
  power of language in controlling ones own
  behavior and thinking.