3) Cognition and Development - Piaget Theory of Cognitive Developmetn Flashcards
What is Cognitive Development?
The development of all mental processes
Piaget discovered that children think entirely ______ than adults.
Different
What is a schema?
Mental framework containing all information about as aspect of the world.
As we develop, are more or less schemas made?
More
How did Piaget suggest learning takes place?
Through adapting to new situations by either Assimilation or Accommodation.
What is Assimilation?
When we acquire new information about something we already know and add(assimilate) it into a new schema.
(e.g Assimilating different dog breeds into the dog schema)
What is Accommodation?
When we acquire information that radically changes a schema or makes a new one.
(Discovering a cat for the first time as a species of animal and not another animal)
What is Equilibration?
The motivated to learn when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new. Leading to the feeling of disequilibrium.
What does equilibration lead to?
Assimilation and Accommodation
What happens when equilibrium is not met?
- The feeling of Disequilibrium occurs.
- The unpleasant experience of a lack of balance.
Give a strength to Piaget’s theory of forming individual mental representations.
P - There is supporting evidence for Piaget’s theory.
E - He put children (9-12yrs) in groups of 4 to discuss the movement of objects down a slope.
E - Was found that there was an increased in their level of knowledge and understanding of the topic compared to when assessed before, but they did not come up with the same conclusions.
L - This supports Piaget’s idea that children learn by forming their own mental representations.
Give a strength for the Application of Piaget’s work
P - Piaget’s idea of children learning by actively exploring their environment has revolutionised classroom teaching.
E - From 1960, Piaget’s idea became popular and changed the classroom setting from sitting silently and copying work to a more activity oriented environment where children can construct their own understandings of the curriculum.
E - In younger years, children investigate the physical properties of things such as water and sand but then learning changes at around a levels to things such as flipped learning where students are encouraged to look at the content before the lesson.
Give a limitation of Piaget’s theory.
P - Piaget may have underplayed the role of other people in learning.
E - Other theories of learning suggest that other people are absolutely central to the learning process.
E - Vygotsky proposed that learning is essentially a social process and that children are capable of much more advanced learning if supported by peers.
What are the stages of intellectual development and their ages?
Sensorimotor stage (0-2)
Pre-operational Stage (2-7)
Stage of concrete operations (7-11)
Stage of formal operations (11+)
What ability is associated with the sensorimotor stage?
Object Permanence
What is object permanence?
The understanding of objects existing when out of sight.
Describe the experiment associated with object permanence?
Piaget observed babies looking at objects and and watch them as they went out of sight.
What were the findings from the OP experiment?
Babies under 8 months immediately switched their attention whereas babies 8+ months would continue looking for the object.
What abilities are associated with the pre-operational stage?
Conservation, Egocentrism, Class Inclusion
What is Conservation?
Quantity of something is the same although the appearance can look different.
What is the conservation experiment?
3 Containers (A, B, C) All containing the same volume of liquid. A and B were identical but C was taller and thinner but since it appeared taller, younger children said that C had more liquid.
What is egocentrism?
To see the world from only one point of view.
What was the egocentrism experiment?
Three Mountains Experiment:
- 3 Mountain Models each with a different feature.
- Child was asked to say what the doll would see from a range of pictures of what was present.
- Pre-operational children tended to find this difficult and often chose the picture that matched the scene from their own point of view.
What is class inclusion?
Objects fall into categories which have subsets.
What was the study conducted by Piaget for class inclusion?
- When they showed 7-8yr old children pictures of dogs and cats and asked the question “Are there more dogs or animals?” they responded with “More dogs.”.
- He interpreted this as meaning younger children cannot simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and the animal class.
At what age do children struggle with class inclusion?
Around 7 and under
What happens during the stage of concrete observations?
- Most children can conserve better and perform better on egocentrism and class inclusion tasks.
- They now have better reasoning abilities called operations but can only be applied to physical objects in the child’s presence.
- Struggle to reason with abstract ideas and to imagine situations which they cannot see.
What happens in the stage of formal operations?
- Children become capable of formal reasoning, meaning they will not get distracted by an arguments content.
- Formal reasoning can be tested through syllogisms.
e. g - “All yellow cats have two heads. I have a yellow cat called Charlie. How many heads does Charlie have?” Although the correct answer is two, Piaget found that younger children became distracted by the content and answered that cats do not have two heads.
- Once children can reason formally, they are capable of scientific reasoning and are able to appreciate abstract ideas.
At what age does the sensorimotor stage occur?
0-2yrs
At what age does the Pre-Operational stage take place?
2-7yrs
At what age does the stage of concrete operations occur?
7 - 11yrs
At what age does the stage of formal operations occur?
11+yrs
Give a limitation of Piaget’s study into conservation?
P - It has been suggested that the children in Piaget’s conservation experiment were influenced when they witnessed the experimenter change the appearance of the counters/liquid.
E - The children could have then thought that they were meant to think that the quantity had changed when it hadn’t.
E - A variation of this study was conducted by McGarrigle and Donaldson where the counters appeared to move by accident and Piaget’s exact experiment was conducted to act as a control.
It was found that 72% said that there was the same number.
L - This shows that children aged
4-6 could conserve as long as they were not put off, so Piaget was wrong about conservation in the pre-operational stage.
Give a limitation of Piaget’s research into class inclusion.
P - Replicated studies of class-inclusion go against Piaget's theory. E - Siegler and Svetina tested 100 5-year olds who undertook 3 sessions of ten class-inclusion tasks, receiving an explanation of the task after each session. E - Scores across the three sessions improved more for the latter groups suggesting that they had acquired an understanding of class-inclusion. L - This contradicts Piaget's theory of children under 7 being unable to understand class inclusion.
Give a limitation of Piaget’s theory of egocentrism.
P - There is research which goes against Piaget’s theory of egocentrism.
E - Hughes tested this using a model with two intersecting walls and three dolls, one being a boy and the other two being police officers.
E - After familiarising the children with the task, it was found that 3 and a half year olds were able to place the boy in a position where one police officer was unable to see it 90% of the time and in 4yr olds were able to do this with two police officers 90% of the time.
L - Studies like this go against Piaget’s theory of egocentrism.
