3 Piaget vs Viagotsky Flashcards
What were the four characteristics of piagets theory?
- Constructionist (believed kids are ‘little scientist’ who conduct experiments to find out about the world around them. Don’t need incentives to do this, they want to understand)
- Stage theory
- Invariant sequence
- Universal
What was Piagets theory on nature and nurture in child development?
Nurture is the care given by caregivers and child’s experiences.
Nature is child’s ability to act, perceive, learn from experiences and motivation to adapt (respond to environment in a way that meets ones goals) and to organise (integrating observations into coherent knowledge).
Part of a child’s nature is to respond tot their nurture judging from the last two.
Sources of continuity in Piagets theory of child development?
- assimilation
- accommodation
- equilibration
What is assimilation?
Incorporating incoming information into concepts that are already understood
(e.g. curly hair = clown)
What is accommodation?
Adapting current understandings in response to new information/experiences
(not a clown coz not in a costume or doing silly things)
What is equilibration?
Balancing assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding
(aligning concept of clown with new information)
What are the three stages of equilibriation?
Equilibrium: child is happy with their understanding of a construct
Disequilibrium: New information leads the child to realise their understanding is inadequate
-Finally the child develops a more sophisticated understanding and a more stable equilibrium
What are the sources of discontinuity in Piagets theory?
-His belief that children’s cognitive development happens in 4 discrete stages
What are the characteristics of the source of discontinuity in Piagets theory?
Qualitative changes:
-e.g. children assess morality based on outcome, but then move onto intent - measuring totally different criteria
Broad applicability:
-type of thinking at a particular stage can be applied across aw wide range of topics and contexts
Brief transitions
-between each stage where both types of thinking are flicked between
Invariant sequence:
-everyone experiences every stage in the same order
What are Piagets 4 stages of cognitive development?
- Sensorimotor stage
- Preoperational stage
- Concrete Operational stage
- Formal operational stage
What age range is the sensorimotor stage?
0-2
What age range is the preoperational stage?
2-7
What age range is the concrete operational stage?
7-12
What age range is the functional operational stage?
+12
What happens in the Sensorimotor stage of development?
0-2 yrs
kiddies use SM abilities to explore world, develop intelligence and express themselves. Live mostly in the here and now
What happens in the preoperational stage of development?
2-7 yrs
kiddies can express themselves verbally and are capable of mental imagery. this means they can have a better understanding of sophisticated concepts but still can’t perform mental operations (forms of reasoning - e.g. that pouring water into a different shaped glass doesn’t change the volume)
What happens in the concrete operational stage of development?
7-12
- children can complete conservation problems
- can’t yet think/reason systematically
- limited to concrete concepts
What happens in the concrete functional stage of development?
+12
-children can think and reason systematically and hypothetically and about abstract concepts
Changes that occur in the Sensorimotor phase:
- reflexes develop
- development of object permanence after 1 yr
- deferred imitation - remember actions carried out by a playmate or parent and imitate them later (minutes or days)
- interest shifts from their own bodies to world around them
Changes that occur in the pre operational stage:
- Development of symbolic representations (e.g. a banana as a gun. over this phase shift from personal ones to ones taken from society)
- Egocentric communication
- Egocentric thinking
- Spatial and verbal egocentralism
- Centration
What is egocentric communication?
Assuming the person you’re talking to already has the same knowledge/information as you
What is egocentric thinking?
'’why doesn’t your week old brother walk’’
‘‘he’s lazy’’
What is centration?
When children tend to focus on one striking feature of the object, and ignore other relevant information. e.g. weights, water, buttons, clay sausage
What are the different types of conservation errors?
What is responsible for conservation errors?
Numbers and solid
Changes that occur in the concrete operational stage:
- Children can’t perform pendulum test
- can complete some conservation tasks (numbers but not solids)
What is unique about the functional operational stage:
- acquisition of this stage is not universal but depends on social environment/stimulation
- acquisition of this stage doesn’t mean adolescents will reason in this way, only that they have the ability to
What are the critiques of piagets theory?
- Vague and doesn’t focus enough on cognitive processes behind development
- Underestimates childrens abilities
- Presents development as far more consistent than it is (kids can completer conservation of numbers tasks before conservation of solid quantity)
- Underestimates social impact on child development
Experiments critiquing Piaget’s theory:
Light Buckingham and Robbins
-if clear reason given for changing the liquid recepticle, children knew it was the same volume. They interpret adults intentions as having meaning
What did Vygotskys theory focus on?
The effects of social interaction and culture in the development of children, and on the guide and structure provided by more able people in order to aid development.
How did Piaget and Vygotskys views on change throughout development differ?
Vygotsky thought of change as continuous and quantitative whereas Piaget thought it was mostly discontinuous and qualitative
What were he two levels in Vygotskys theory?
Higher mental function
Lower mental function
What is cultural mediation?
The passing on of knowledge through generations via social interactions with others
What are cultural tools?
Things such as language, values, skills and other symbols that represent shared knowledge of culture
What is lower mental function?
Thought of as elementary mental abilities that are mostly biological and innate and involuntary
include responding to the environment, perception etc
What is higher mental function?
-Consciously controlled transformation of lower mental functions using cultural mediation, voluntary attention and cultural tools, conceptual thought and logical planning
Internalisation
When a child learns a cultural tool and can use it independently
P vs V speech:
- Piaget thought it was egocentric speech
- Vygotsky believed it was a learning tool
Process of internalisation of speech:
- helps guide behaviour
- First may come from adult or parent as instruction
- Children use it to instruct themselves aloud (4-6)
- Gradually becomes less aloud and more internalised through whispering and mouthing
- children with behavioural problems use it for longer
- external to internal comes with age and experience
What did vygotsky say about the inclinations to teach and learn?
They’re uniquely human and appear around age 2 - children point out thing they think are interesting
How does culture effect cognitive development?
the content of what children learns is very different across different cultures and can shape thinking (hansel and gretel vs chinese fairytale tasks)
What are the 4 ways children learn? V
- Social scaffolding
- Zone of proximal development
- Intersubjectivity
- Guided participation
What are the types of intersubjectivity?
- Social referencing - looking to social partner for how to react in an unfamiliar situation
- The mutual understanding that people share during communication
- Joint attention - of both partners on the same thing from the external environment (babies can follow their social partners gaze from 9 months, the faster they show this, the faster subsequent language development is.)
What is the zone of proximal development?
-just outside the capability of what a child can do on their own
‘the range of performance for what a child can do on their own and what they can do with help’
What is social scaffolding?
A temporary framework provided for a child by someone else to aid the childs understanding of what would otherwise be beyond their capability
more able people provide better social scaffolding (parents better than peers)
What is guided participation?
more knowledgable individuals can structure activities in a way that allow younger children to engage in a sort of cultural apprenticeship e.g. young mayan girls and weaving
What do children use play for?
-stretching into ZPD by peers
Playing requires rules and roles so allows the child to:
-self regulate behaviour (social development)
-distinguish objects from ideas (conceptual development)
