Chapter 12

Question 1

The Concrete-Operational Stage

Answer 1

• concrete operations: the third stage in Piaget’s model of development, characterized by flexible, reversible thought concerning tangible objects and events
  - reached by age 7 and lasts until age 12
  - children show the beginnings of adult
  logic
  - less egocentric
  - recognize that people see things in
  different ways because of different
  situations and values
  - decentration: simultaneous focusing on
  more than one aspect of dimension of a
  problem or situation
• conservation – children show the ability to understand the laws of conservation
  - knows that objects can have several
  properties or dimensions
• transitivity: the principle that if a>b and b>c, then a>c
  - seriation: placing objects in an order or
  series according to a property or trait
  - concrete operational children have the
  decentration capacity to allow them to
  seriate in two dimensions

Question 2

Applications of Piaget’s Theory to Education

Answer 2

• Piaget believed that learning involves active discovery
  - teachers shouldn’t just try to
  impose knowledge, but rather make it
  interesting and use stimulating materials
  - instruction should be geared to the
  child’s level of development

Question 3

Moral Development

Answer 3

• Jean Piaget and Lawrence Kohlberg believed that moral reasoning undergoes the same cognitive-developmental pattern around the world
• moral reasoning is related to the child’s overall cognitive development
• Piaget’s theory of moral development
• stage 1
• moral realism: the judgement of acts as moral when they conform to authority or to the rules of the game
• objective morality: the perception of morality as objective, that is, as existing outside the cognitive functioning of people
• emerges around age 5
• perceive rules as embedded in the structure of things