3) Cognition and Development - Vygotsky's Theory of Cognitive Development Flashcards
What is the Zone of Proximal Development?
- The gap between a child’s current level of development and what they can potentially understand after interacting with experts.
What allows a child to cross the zone of proximal development?
Expert assistance
What can limit a child from crossing the zone of proximal development?
Their development stage
What did Vygotsky say crossing the zone of proximal development leads to?
A more advanced understanding of a situation and therefore more advanced reasoning abilities.
What is Scaffolding?
The process of helping a learner cross the zone of proximal development and advance as much as they can given their stage of development.
What is the Vygotsky-Bruner Model?
The five aspects to scaffolding which can help a child perform and understand a task better.
What are the five aspects to scaffolding?
Recruitment - Engaging the child’s interest
Reduction of degrees of freedom - Focusing the child on the task and where to start with solving it.
Direction maintenance - Encouraging the child in order to help them to stay motivated and continue trying to complete the task.
Marking critical features - Highlighting the most important parts of the task.
Demonstration - Showing the child how to do aspects of the task.
Give a strength for the zone of proximal development.
P - There is supporting evidence for the zone of proximal development.
E - Roazzi and Bryant gave 4-5yr old children the task of estimating the number of sweets in a box.
In one condition the children worked alone but in the other they worked with the help of an older child.
E - Most children working alone failed to give a good estimate but in the expert condition the older children gave prompts which allowed the younger children to give a good estimate
L - This suggests that the ZOPD is a valid concept as children are able to develop additional reasoning abilities when working with experts.
Give a strength for scaffolding
P - There is research support for scaffolding.
E - Connor and Cross followed 45 children in a longitudinal procedure, observing them engage in problem solving tasks with the help of their mothers at 16, 26, 44 and 54 months.
E - Distinctive changes in help were observed over time, mothers used less and less direct intervention and more prompts as children gained experience.
Only gave help when it was needed than constantly.
L - This clearly shows that scaffolding is a valid explanation for development as the children gained less help over time, correlating with Vygotsky’s theory.
