Ch. 6 Definitions

Question 1

Schemes

Answer 1

Actions or mental representations that organize knowledge (Piaget’s theory)

Question 2

Assimilation

Answer 2

Concept in which children use existing schemes to incorporate new information (Piaget’s theory)

Question 3

Accommodation

Answer 3

Concept of adjusting schemes to fit new information and experiences (Piaget’s theory)

Question 4

Organization

Answer 4

Concept of grouping isolated behaviors and thoughts into higher-order, more smoothly functioning cognitive systems (Piaget’s theory)

Question 5

Equilibration

Answer 5

Mechanism proposed to explain how children shift from one stage of thought to the next (Piaget’s theory)

Question 6

Sensorimotor stage

Answer 6

Birth to 2; during which infants construct understanding of the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical, motoric actions (Piaget’s theory, stage 1)

Question 7

Object permanence

Answer 7

The understanding that objects exist even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, touched (Piaget’s theory, first sensorimotor stage)

Question 8

A-not-B error

Answer 8

Selecting familiar hiding place of an object rather than its new hiding place (Piaget’s theory, substage 4 of sensorimotor stage)

Question 9

Core knowledge approach

Answer 9

Infants are born with domain-specific innate knowledge systems such as space, number sense, object permanence, language

Question 10

Preoperational stage

Answer 10

Age 2-7; children represent the world with words, images, drawings (Piaget’s theory, second stage)

Question 11

Operations

Answer 11

Reversible mental actions that allow children to do mentally what before they had done only physically

Question 12

Symbolic function substage

Answer 12

Age 2-4; ability to represent mentally an object that is not present (Piaget’s theory, first substage of preoperational thought)

Question 13

Egocentrism

Answer 13

Inability to distinguish between one’s own and someone else’s perspective (Piaget’s theory, key in preoperational thought)

Question 14

Animism

Answer 14

Belief that inanimate objects have lifelike qualities and are capable of action (Piaget’s theory, key part of preoperational thought)

Question 15

Intuitive thought substage

Answer 15

Age 4-7; using primitive reasoning to consider all sorts of questions (Piaget’s theory, second substage of preoperational thought)

Question 16

Centration

Answer 16

Focusing attention on one characteristic to the exclusion of all others

Question 17

Conservation

Answer 17

Awareness that altering the appearance of an object/substance does not change its basic properties

Question 18

Concrete operational stage

Answer 18

Age 7-11; children can perform concrete operations and logical reasoning replaces intuitive reasoning as long as the reasoning can be applied to specific or concrete examples (Piaget’s theory, third stage)

Question 19

Seriation

Answer 19

Concrete operation that involves ordering stimuli along a quantitative dimension (such as length)

Question 20

Transivity

Answer 20

Ability to logically combine relations to understand certain conclusions (Piaget’s theory, concrete operational stage)

Question 21

Formal operational stage

Answer 21

Appears between age 11-15; moving beyond concrete experiences and think in more abstract and logical ways (Piaget’s theory)

Question 22

Hypothetical-deductive reasoning

Answer 22

Cognitive ability to develop hypotheses about ways to solve problems and can systematically deduce which is the best path to follow in solving the problem (Piaget’s theory, formal operational stage)

Question 23

Adolescent egocentrism

Answer 23

Heightened self-consciousness of adolescents which is reflected in the belief that others are as interested in them as they are interested in themselves; personal uniqueness and invincibility (Piaget’s theory, formal operational stage)

Question 24

Imaginary audience

Answer 24

Aspect of adolescent egocentrism involving feeling that one is the center of attention as if on a stage

Question 25

Personal fable

Answer 25

Aspect of adolescent egocentrism involving a person’s sense of uniqueness/invincibility

Question 26

Neo-Piagetians

Answer 26

Developmentalists who have elaborated on Piaget’s theory, emphasizing attention to children’s strategies, information-processing speed, task involved, division of the problem into more precise, smaller steps

Question 27

Zone of Proximal Development

Answer 27

Tasks that are too difficult for children to master alone but can be mastered with assistance from adults or more-skilled children (Vygotsky)

Question 28

Scaffolding

Answer 28

Changing level of support over the course of a teaching session, adjusting guidance to fit the child’s performance level (Vygotsky)

Question 29

Social constructivist approach

Answer 29

Emphasis on social contexts of learning and construction of knowledge though social interaction (Vygotsky’s is one such approach)

Question 30

Postformal thought

Answer 30

Thinking that is reflective, relativistic, and contextual; provisional; realistic; and influenced by emotions