COGNITION AND DEVELOPMENT Flashcards
Who produced the influential theory of cognitive development
Jean Piaget (1926,1950)
What was Piaget’s contribution to child psychology
(What did he say about how children think)
Children do not simply know less than adults do. Children think in entirely different ways.
How did Piaget divide childhood
Into stages
What does each stage of piagets understanding of childhood represent
Development of new ways of thinking
What two aspects did Piaget look at in children’s learning
The role of motivation in development
The question of how knowledge develops.
What is cognitive development
A general term describing the development of all mental processes, in particular thinking, reasoning and our understanding of the world.
At what stage of life are psychologists particularly concerned with for cognitive development
How it develops through childhood
Is cognitive development only important in childhood
No
It continues throughout the life span of
What is schema
A mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing.
How is schema developed
From experience
According to Piaget what is the schema of a newly born child like
Children are born with a small number of schema.
Enough to allow them to interact with the world and other people.
What is one of the new schema developed in infancy
Me-schema
What is stored in me-schema
All the child’s knowledge about themselves is recorded
Cognitive development involves the construction of progressively ___
more detailed schema.
Give examples of what schemas can be for
(3)
Name 2 that may develop later in life
People, objects, physical actions
Justice and morality
What does Piaget believe about schema and motivation to learn
We are pushed to learn when our existing schema do not allow us to make sense of something new.
What is the unpleasant sensation called when our existing scheme doesn’t allow us to understand something
Disequilibrium
How do we escape disequilibrium
We have to adapt to new situations by exploring and developing our understanding.
What is the preferred mental state
Equilibration
What is achieved when we adapt to a new situation by exploring and developing
Equilibration
When does Equilibration take place
When we have encountered new information and built it into our understanding of a topic, either by assimilating it into an existing schema or accommodating it by forming a new schema.
What is Equilibration
When everything is balanced
Name the two processes by which adaptation takes place
Assimilation
Accommodation
When does assimilation take place
A form of learning that takes place when we acquire new information or a more advanced understanding of an object, person or idea.
What is assimilation
New information does not radically change our understanding of the topic.
Equilibration occurs by adding new information to our existing schema’s.
When does accommodation take place
A form of learning that takes place when we acquire new information that changes our understanding of a topic.
A response to a dramatically new experience.
What is accommodation
Equilibrating by forming one or more new schema and/or radically changing schema in order to deal with the new understanding.
what are two strengths of piagets theory
The existence of evidence for the individual formation of mental representations.
Real-world application to teaching
Who did research that provided evidence for the individual formation of mental representations
Christine Howe et al. (1992)
What was Howes method when investigating the individual formation of mental representations
Children aged 9-12 were placed in groups of four to investigate and discuss movement of objects down a slope.
What was Howes findings when investigation the individual formation of mental representations
All the children were found to have increased their understanding.
Their understanding had not become more similar, each child had picked up different facts and reached slightly different conclusions.
How did piagets theory change classrooms
Rather than children sat silently in rows copying from the board an activity-orientated classroom in which children actively engaged in takes that allowed them to construct their own understandings of the curriculum came into play.
When did piagets theory influence classrooms
1960s
What is the counterpoint to piagets influence on modern practice in teaching and learning
There is no firm evidence showing that children learn better using discovery learning
Who did a recent review on piagets theory and researched what the best method of learning is
Ard Lazonder and Ruth Harmsen (2016)
What did Lazonder and Harmsen conclude in their research on best method of teaching
Discovery learning with considerable input from teachers was the most effective way to learn, input from others, not discovery per se, is the crucial element of this effectiveness
What is one limitation of piagets theory
He underestimated the role of others in learning.
What was piagets theory on other people within learning
They are potential sources of information and learning experiences
What was piagets overall opinion on learning when it comes to others involvements
He saw learning itself as an individual process
Why does piagets view on others roles in learning limit his theory
Who’s theory contradicts piaget’s when it comes to the role of other people
It has an incomplete explanation for learning as there is not enough emphasis on the role of other people
Vygotsky’s theory.
What is the flaw in piaget’s research when it comes to motivation
He studied his own children and then those in a university nursery.
Those that are more likely to be motivated to learn the most
How many stages of intellectual development did Piaget state
4
Name the 4 stages of Piagets stages of intellectual development
Sensorimotor stage
Pre-operational stage
Stage of concrete operations
Stage of formal operations
What is each stage in piagets stages of intellectual development characterised by
A different level of reasoning ability
Is the exact age at which children go through the stages the same?
What is the key point of the stages?
The exact ages very from child to child.
Key point is that all children develop through the same sequence of stages
At what ages does a child tend to be in the Sensorimotor stage
0 - 2 years
What does Piaget say about a baby’s early focus
It is on physical sensations and on developing some basic physical co-ordination
How do babies learn
Through trial and error
What understanding do babies develop in the first 2 years about people and language
Other people are separate objects and they acquire some basic language
At roughly what age are babies capable of understanding object permanence
8 months
What is object permanence
The ability to realise that an object still exists when it passes out of the visual field.
What do babies do with an out of sight object prior to 8 months
Babies immediately switched their attention away from the object once it was out of sight
What do babies do with an out of object sight when 8 months or older
Continue to look for it.
Roughly what ages is the pre-operational stage
2 - 7 years
What are three characteristic errors in reasoning displayed in the pre-operational stage
Conservation
Egocentrism
Class inclusion
What is conservation
The ability to realise that quantity remains the same even when the appearance of an object or group of object changed.
What was the method of piagets number conservation experiment
Placed two rows of eight identical counters side by side.
Got children to state if the two row of counters had the same number or not.
Pushed the counters in one row closer together.
Got the children to state again if the two rows of counters and the same number or not.
What was piagets findings in his number conservation experiment
Even young children correctly reasoned that each row of counters had the same number when spread out.
When one of the rows had the counters closer together, pre-operational children struggled to conserve and said there were fewer counters in that row.
What was the method to piagets liquid conservation experiment
Two identical containers with the contents at the same hight were placed side by side.
Asked the children if they had the same volume.
Poured one of the liquids into a taller glass so they weren’t at the same hight.
Asked the children if they had the same volume.
What was the findings to piagets liquid conservation procedure
Most children spotted the containers had the same volume of liquid when placed in identical containers side by side with the contents at the same height.
When one liquid was in a taller container with its contents higher than the other younger children believed there was more liquid in the taller vessel.
What is egocentrism
Is it physical or emotional
A child’s tendency to only be able to see the world from their own point of view.
Applies to both physical objects and arguments.
Who did Piaget work with on the three mountain task when looking into egocentrism
Barbel Inhelder (1956)
What was the method for the three mountain task
Children were shown three model mountains, each with a different feature (a cross, house or snow).
A doll was placed at the side of the model so that it faced the scene from a different angle.
The child was asked to choose what the doll would see from a range of pictures.
What was the results of the three mountain task
Pre-operational children tended to find it difficult and often chose the picture that matched the scene from their own point of view.
What is class inclusion
An advanced classification skill in which we recognise that classes of objects have subjects and are themselves subsets of larger classes.
Give an example of what most pre-operational children could classify
Pugs, bull terriers and retrievers as dogs
What was Paiget and Inhelders method for investigating class inclusion
Showed 7-8 year-old children pictures of 5 dogs and 2 cats and asked ‘are there more dogs or animals?’
What were the results of piaget and inhelders investigation into class inclusion
Explain
Children under 7 struggle with more advanced skill of class inclusion.
Children respond that there were more dogs than animals.
Younger children cannot simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and the animal class.
At roughly what age is the stage of concrete operations experienced
7 - 11 years
What did Piaget call externally-verifiable reasoning abilities
Operations
What could children 7 -11 now do
Conserve and perform much better on tasks of egocentrism and class inclusion.
What do children in the concrete operations stage struggle with
Struggle to reason about abstract ideas and to imagine objects or situations they cannot see.
What are concrete operations
Operations that can only be applied to physical objects or situations they can see
Who can complete concrete operations
Children 7 or older
What age is the stage of formal operations reached
11 and above
What are children able to do from 11+
Become able to focus on the form of an argument and not be distracted by its content.
Who investigated arguments and their contents in children
Smith et al. (1998)
What was Smith’s method for investigating formal operations
Gave the statement ‘all yellow cats have two heads. I have a yellow cat called Charlie. How many heads does Charlie have?’
Then recorded children responses.
What did paiget find in his research on formal operations
That younger children became distracted by the content and answered that cats don’t really have two heads.
What type of test is Smiths question for formal operations
What is another method of testing
A syllogisms
The pendulum task
What did Piaget believe a child could do after being able to reason formally
They are capable of scientific reasoning and become able to appreciate abstract ideas.
What’s are the three major flaws in piagets conclusions in his stages of intellectual development
Research for conservation was flawed
Findings on class inclusions are contradicted by newer reserach
Lack of support for piaget’s view of egocentrism
What was the flaw in piagets experiments for conservation
Children may have been influenced by seeing the experimenter change the appearance of the counters or liquids.
Why would the researcher change the appearance and then ask if it was the same?
Who did further research into conservation in young children
James McGarrigle and Margaret Donaldson (1974)
What was McGarrigle and Donaldson’s method when researching conservation in children.
They replicated the counter task with 4-6 yr old children.
They replicated the task again but this time a ‘naughty teddy’ appeared and knocked the counters closer together.
What was McGarrigle and Donaldsons findings when they repeated the counter task for investigating conservation
When they repeated piagets method exactly they found that most children answered incorrectly.
When the ‘naughty teddy’ knocked the counters closer together 72% now correctly said there were the same number of counters.
What does McGarrigle and Donaldson’s findings suggest about piagets theory and flaws in his method
Children could conserve if they were not put off by the way they were questioned.
Piaget was wrong about the age at which conservation appears
Who conducted newer research into class inclusion
Robert Siegler and Matija Svetina (2006)
What was Siegler and Svetina’s method when investigating class inclusion
They gave 100 5 yr olds from Slovenia ten class-inclusion tasks, recieveing an explanation of the task after each session.
One group was told that there must be more animals than dogs because there were 9 animas and 6 dogs.
Another group was told there must be more animals because dogs are a subset of animals.
What was Siegler and Svetina’s findings when investigating class inclusion
What does this prove
The group that had subsets explained to them improved across the sessions more than the other.
Children can acquire an understanding if class inclusion at ages 4-6 contradicting Piaget.
Who completed research on egocentrism after piaget
Martin Hughs (1975)
What was Hughes’s method when testing egocentrism
He tested the ability of children to see a situation from two people’s viewpoints using a model with two intersecting walls and three dolls. A boy and two police. The children were asked to place the boy doll where the two police dolls couldn’t see it.
What was Hughes’s findings from his research on egocentrism
Once familiar with the task children as young as 3 1/2 years were able to place the boy doll in the right position with one police doll 90% of the time.
4 year olds could do it 90% of the time with two police dolls present.
What did Hughes’s findings on egocentrism suggest
When tested with a scenario that makes more sense, children are able to decentre and imagine other perspectives much earlier than Piaget proposed.
What is wrong with the arguments against piagets work
His core stages remain unchallenged.
Only the methods he used meant the timing of his stages were wrong.
Which Russian psychologist was influenced by piagets work
Lev Vygotsky (1934)
What is the major difference between Vygotsky and piagets work
Vygotsky saw cognitive development as a social process of learning from more experienced others.
What did Vygotsky call the experienced others
‘Experts’
What did Vygotsky say knowledge is at first
Intermental between the more and less expert individual
What did Vygotsky say came after intermental
Intamental - within the mind of the less expert individual
What did Vygotsky see as much more important in cognitive development than Piaget
Language
What impact does culture have on cognitive abilities for the future
Children are picking up the mental ‘tools’ that will be most important for life within the physical, social and work environment of their culture.
What is the zone of proximal development (ZPD)
The gap between a child’s current level of development (defined by the cognitive tasks they can perform unaided) and what they can potentially do with the right help form a more expert other.
Expert assistance will allow a child to do what?
Cross the ZPD and understand as much of a subject or situation as they are capable.
What did Vygotsky believe about the impact of learning from others on understanding and reasoning
Children develop a more advanced understanding of a situation and hence the more advanced reasoning abilities needed to deal with it by learning from others.
What did Vygotsky believe about how higher mental functions could be aquired
Believed they could only be acquired through interaction with more advanced others
What does the term scaffolding mean
The process of helping a learner cross the zone of proximal development and advance as much as they can, given their stage of development.
What happens to the level of help in scaffolding as a learner crosses the ZPD
The level of help given in scaffolding declines.
Who suggested much of what we know about scaffolding
Jerome Bruner
What is the approach with scaffolding often called
The Vygotsky-Bruner model
Who noted the particular stratergies that experts use when scaffolding
David Wood, Jermaine Burner and Gail Ross (1976)
The level of scaffolding declines from what level to what level
5 to 1
Name the 5 levels of scaffolding in order with numbers
- Demonstration
- Preparation for child
- Indication of materials
- Specific verbal instructions
- General prompts
As a child grasps a task what happens to the levels and the expert
The level declines
The expert withdraws the level of help
