(6) Piaget & Vygotsky Flashcards
What is cognitive development?
Mental processes that support learning, memory, attention
What is the Constructivist approach?
child constructs knowledge by engaging with world, generates and tests theories
What did Piaget focus on?
Children’s errors and mistakes
What is Maturation?
unfolding of biological changes that are genetically programmed
What is Activity?
child as an active learner, exploring the environment
What is Social transmission?
learn from others
What is Equilibration?
when pre-existing schemes or ways of thinking about an object do not fit with our experiences we adjust to re-establish balance – this is how our thinking moves forward
What is Assimilation?
“adding” of information to existing structure
What is Accommodation?
reorganising the structure to take account of new information, changing structure
What is a Schema?
an organised unit of knowledge that the child uses to try and understand a situation; a schema forms a basis for organising actions and thoughts in response to the environment
What did Piaget believe about how children developed through stages?
UNIVERSAL – All children go through all stages, in the same order
What age does the Sensorimotor stage occur?
birth to 2 years
What age does the Preoperational stage occur?
2-7 years
What age does the Concrete operational stage occur?
7-11 years
What age does the Formal operational occur?
11+ years
What happens at the sensorimotor stage?
- Building schemes through sensory and motor exploration
- Child builds on basic reflexes
- Develops object permanence
what is Object permanence?
objects still exist when we can’t see them, not aware of this at this stage
What is an example of a task for object permanence (sensorimotor)
A-Not-B Task: 10-month-old child perseverates, continuing to look at the initial location
What happens at the preoperational stage?
- Preparing for concrete operations
- Symbolic: symbols (e.g., language) used to represent objects/the world
- Language development, play, deferred imitation
- Egocentric: limited appreciation of others’ perspectives
- Cannot systematically transform (operate on, manipulate) representations or ideas
What is an example of a preoperational task?
- Conservation tasks: A preoperational child doesn’t recognise that changing an object’s appearance doesn’t change its basic properties
- Lack of understanding of reversibility: inability to reverse mental processes
- Centration: focusing on one dimension/characteristic of an object or situation, focus on height
What are issues with preoperational tasks?
- More careful questioning (Rose and Blank, 1974)
- Accidental transformations, not setting the situation up (McGarrigle & Donaldson, 1975)
- Training, can improve performance (Gelman, 1982)
What happens at the concrete operational stage?
- Operation: emergence of ability to transform objects in mind
- Logic: first signs of logical thinking
- Reversibility: ability to mentally reserve an operation
- Decentration: understanding that change on one dimension can be compensated for by change in another
What happens at the formal operational stage?
- Deducing hypotheses from a general theory
- Generate predictions
- Systematically test predictions, holding one factor constant, vary another factor
- Flexibility in thinking, able to think abstractly
- Can consider alternatives in complex reasoning and problem solving
How would a Concrete operational child interpret Piaget’s Pendulum problem?
Concrete operational child will vary factors (length of string, weight of pendulum, force) randomly
How would a Formal operational child interpret Piaget’s Pendulum problem?
Formal operational child will systematically vary one factor at a time
What is the general evaluation of Piaget?
- Cognitive development not just learning (nurture)
- Cognitive development not just unfolding of innate structure (nature)
- Cognitive development not passive (behaviourism), but the result of children’s active construction of knowledge
- Single domain general
What is the main critque of Piaget’s theory?
Development doesn’t end at 11 years. Also do all adults apply formal operations (Kuhn & Franklin, 2006)
What did (Cohen & Cashon, 2006; Halford & Andrews, 2006) say about Piaget’s theory?
Tasks index more than just developments in logical thinking (language, memory, attention…) – modern methods
What did Berk, 2008 say about applying Piaget to education?
- Listen to children, pay attention to their thinking processes
- Set up situations with unexpected consequences, hypothesis testing e.g., what do we think will happen?
- Concept of differentiation, materials can be taught at different levels, adjust to match child’s capacities
- Individual differences, children develop at different rates
What did Vygotsky say?
Social interactions with more experienced others (parents, older children, teachers): co-constructed processes are internalised, language and learning
What is egocentric/private speech (Vygotsky)
Young children provide a running commentary to their own actions and thoughts
How can private speech be helpful? (Vygotksy)
- Private speech allows children to: reflect on thinking and behaviour, plan appropriate action
- Helps guide behaviour: Used more when tasks are difficult, after errors, or when confused
When does private speech increase? (Vygotsky)
Private speech increases with task difficulty (Fernyhough& Fradley, 2005)
What happens to private speech at 7+ (Vygotsky)
Becomes inner speech
Who might use private speech for longer than usual? (Vygotsky)
Children with learning and behavioural problems use private speech for longer (Ostad & Sorensen, 2007)
What is ZPD? (Vygotsky)
The region of sensitivity for learning characterised by difference between developmental level of which a child is capable when working alone and the level they are capable of reaching with the aid of a more sill partner
What is Intersubjectivity? (Vygotsky)
Process by which two participants start task with different levels of understanding, but finish task with same level
What is Scaffolding? (Vygotsky)
Process by which teachers adjust level of instruction to suit child’s current level of understanding e.g. by breaking a task down into simpler components, the use of a more knowledgeable partner, support adjusts throughout the interaction
What is Guided participation (Rogoff, 2003)? (Vygotsky)
In less formal teaching situations than those where scaffolding occur – the cultural community – More knowledgeable other can guide behaviour through joint participation in a task, or in play
What did Wertsch et al. (1980) find when looking at ZPD? (Vygotsky)
mother-directed gazes decrease with age i.e. prompt not needed, roles within this learning situation change with age
What is make believe play crucial for? (Vygotsky)
cognitive and social development
What can make believe play provide? (Vygotsky)
Provides children with self-generated ZPD: try out different approaches and more complex problems
What are some key evaluation points of Vygotsky’s work?
- Focus on language de-emphasizes other key factors, such as observation and other learning methods
- Underestimates role of nature (Piaget too)? Evidence from infant studies
- Made others aware of the importance of the immediate social contexts of learning and cognition
How should Vygotsky’s theory be used in education?
- Collaborative learning between peers e.g., reciprocal teaching
- Scaffolding: work with more knowledgeable others (parents, teachers, older pupils…)
- Use language to organise thinking, dialogue and discussion
- Acknowledges individual differences
- Tailoring tasks, differentiation
What is Information Processing Theories (Siegler, 1996)?
- Focus on role of attention, memory, self-control etc. as mechanisms of change
- Development involves overcoming processing limitations
