Baillargeon + Vygotsky Flashcards
Renee Baillargeon
Focused on research into understanding exactly how well-developed cognitive abilities are in infancy.
Critic of Piaget- challenges his idea of sensorimotor stage.
She believes that young babies have a well-developed understanding of the physical world.
maybe babies lacked motor skills to find a hidden object or they have simply lost interest (easily distractable).
knowledge of the physical world =
our understanding of how the physical world works. eg. object permanence- understanding that just because you can no longer see an object it still exists.
violation of expectation research
investigates infants’ knowledge of the world.
Uses idea- if children understand how the physical world operates then they will expect certain things to happen.
If these do not occur and children show surprise, then it suggests that they have an intact knowledge of that aspect of the world.
Typically, children will be shown 2 test events:
1.An expected event
2. An unexpected event (violates- goes against expectations)
Baillargeon’s research
Procedure:
24 babies (5-6 months old).
Showed them a tall and a short bunny passing behind a screen with a window (Familiarisation event)
Expected event- the short bunny passes behind the screen with a window but is no longer visible until it passes out the other side.- bunny too small so passes underneath window
Unexpected event- the tall bunny passes behind the screen with a window, and again it’s not visible until it passes out the other side- bunny should be seen as it’s as tall as the window
A child with object permanence should show surprise at the unexpected event - stare longer
Baillargeon’s findings
The babies looked on average 33 seconds at the unexpected event compared to 25 seconds at the expected event.
This was interpreted as meaning the babies were surprised at the unexpected event- meaning they understood they should have been able to see the tall bunny passing through the screen via the window.
so demonstrating object permanence.
Theory of infant physical reasoning
Humans are all born with physical reasoning system.
Hardwired with basic understanding of physical world.
We have a primitive awareness of the physical properties of the world and these become more sophisticated as we learn from experience - explains why Baillargeon believes OP develops sooner
This differs from Piaget who stated that we don’t have any innate mechanisms that help with this.
strength of Baillargeon
attempted to address issues with validity of research
E: One example of this is that she asked the parents (who held their children on their lap) to close their eyes during the study and not to interact with the infant.
C: this is so that babies didn’t copy anything parents did as parents didn’t know. Increases validity as it’s genuine reaction
E: there was also 2 observers present and recording their findings. These 2 observers were also not told whether the event the baby would watch was going to be expected/unexpected.
C: prevents researcher bias as they don’t know what babies are being shown so they can’t misinterpret the times. Increases reliability as it establishes inter rater reliability
strength of Baillargeon - sample
E: Piaget was criticised for using middle class children, Baillargeon instead collected her sample from birth announcements posted in the local paper, giving her higher levels of population validity.
C: can generalise findings to different children in different social classes as sample is representative
HOWEVER lacks cultural validity as study is conducted in US - individualistic western culture. so can’t generalise to other countries
limitation of Baillargeon
fails to demonstrate whether infants understand OP
E: studying babies is a problem as you can’t clarify their intentions so you’re working off inference. Researchers accept these infants may be surprised by unexpected events (their prolonged stares) but does that mean they understand object permanence? Piaget stated that children shouldn’t simply acting in accordance with a principle they should be able to understand it.
C: This is a limitation because it suggests that Baillargeon’s research may have simply shown that Piaget may have underestimated children rather than contradicting his theory.
Piaget + Vygotsky
Agreed that children’s reasoning abilities develop at sequence - Abilities are qualitatively different at each ages
Cog development for Vygotsky was a social process of learning from more experienced others (experts) rather than an individual process that Piaget believed
cultural differences in cognitive abilities
Vygotsky said we acquire reasoning abilities from the more experienced individuals who the child has contact with.
This means that there may be cultural difference in cognitive development with children picking up the mental ‘tools’ that will be most important for life within the physical, social and work environments of their culture.
elementary + higher functions
Children are born with elementary functions (perception and memory). These are innate and naturally develop.
These are transformed into: Higher mental functions (such as use of mathematical systems, understanding abstract ideas) by influence of culture.
Role of culture = transform elementary functions into higher mental functions.
role of others: experts
A child learns when problem solving experiences are shared with someone else.
All people with greater knowledge than a child are called experts eg. teachers/parents
Initially the expert will assume the responsibility of teaching the child and guiding them through learning gradually. However, this responsibility then transfers to the child.
role of language
To begin with in younger years, language takes form of shared dialogues between adult and child: pre-intellectual speech
As the child’s language develops this enables more cognitive development and the child begins to communicate with themselves.
Emphasised the role of language in cognitive development – external/social speech leads to egocentric speech leads to inner speech/thought
zone of proximal development (ZPD)
gap between a child’s current level of development (defined by cognitive tasks they can do unaided) and what they can potentially do with the right help from experts.
what is the ZPD?
Expert assistance allows a child to cross the ZPD and understand as much of a situation as they are capable.
Though, children are still limited by their developmental stage.
Children develop a more advanced understanding of a situation and more advanced reasoning abilities by learning from others rather than individual exploration of the world (as Piaget suggested)
Children learn more facts during social interaction and more advanced reasoning abilities.
Believed these higher mental functions could only be acquired through interaction with more advanced others.
scaffolding
The process of helping a learner cross the ZPD and advance as much as they can.
Typically level of help given in scaffolding declines as a learner crosses the ZPD
Wood et al and scaffolding
Wood et al 1976- particular strategies that experts use when scaffolding.
As help is given and child passes through the ZPD, the level of help declines from level 5 (most help) to level 1 (least help) as child grasps the task
scaffolding example to help a child draw
level 5- demonstration eg. mother draws object with crayons
level 4 - preparation for child eg. mother helps child grasp crayon
level 3 - indication of materials eg. mother points to crayons
level 2 - specific verbal instructions eg. mother says ‘how about the green crayon?’
level 1 - general prompts - mother says ‘now draw something else’
strength of Vygotsky - evidence to show that ZPD supports a child’s cognitive development
E: Roazzi & Bryant (1998): 4–5-year-olds given task to estimate the number of sweets in a box. Children working alone failed to give a good estimate. Children who received help from an expert successfully mastered the task.
C: supports idea that experts help us do something we can’t do alone. experts provide scaffolding so shows that ZPD is a valid concept.
strength of Vygotsky - highly useful in education
E: Idea that children can learn more and faster with appropriate scaffolding has raised the expectations of what they should be able to achieve. Social interaction in learning, through group work, teacher and teaching assistant help has been used to scaffold children through the ZPD. A review of usefulness of teaching assistant (Alborz et al, 2009) concluded TAs are very effective at improving the rate of learning in children.
C: improves children’s understanding so they should achieve better results and quality of education is improved
HOWEVER limitation of Vygotsky - useful applications may not be universal
E: In China children learn in classes of up to 50 children in lecture style teaching with very few individual interactions with peers/ tutor and still learn very effectively.
C: This is a limitation as it suggests that Vygotsky may have overestimated the importance of scaffolding in learning. Chinese classrooms value work of Piaget.
