Cognitive

Question 1

What is Piagets theory about?

Answer 1

Basic assumptions
Basic processes
Stages of cognitive development
- characteristics of stage theories
- Piagets 4 stages

Question 2

What are basic assumptions?

Answer 2

Child actively constructs knowledge

Question 3

What is the constructivist approach?

Answer 3

Child learns on own, not just from others
Child is intrinsically motivated to learn

Question 4

What are schemes?

Answer 4

Cognitive structure that forms the basis of organising actions and mental representations so that we can understand and act upon then environment

Question 5

What are 3 processes that propel development?

Answer 5

Assimilation
Accommodation
Equilibration

Question 6

What is assimilation?

Answer 6

Taking in information compatible with what is already known, incorporating into existing schemas

Question 7

What is accommodation?

Answer 7

Changing existing knowledge based on new knowledge; modifying schemas based on experience

Question 8

What is equilibration?

Answer 8

Balancing assimilation and accommodation to create stable understanding; reorganising schemes to achieve balance

Question 9

How do children understand the world

Answer 9

With schemes

Question 10

What are the characteristics of stage theories

Answer 10

Discontinuous
Invariant sequence
Hierarchical
Domain-general

Question 11

What is discontinuous?

Answer 11

Tree = continuous - as age increases so does development

Butterfly = discontinuous - there are plateaus/stages

Question 12

What are Piagets 4 stages?

Answer 12

Sensorimotor
Preoperational
Concrete operational
Formal operational

Question 13

What is sensorimotor?

Answer 13

0-2
Intelligence expressed through sensory and motor abilities
Integration of motor movements with sensory experiences

Question 14

What are the sub stages of sensorimotor?

Answer 14

Modification of reflexes (0-1month)
Primary circular reactions - organise repeated reflexes into larger behaviour, centred on own body, repetitive (1-4months)
Secondary circular reaction - environment is included in reactions (4-10 months) (infants lack object permanence)
Intentional coordinated behaviour (10-12months) means and end; cause and effect. Now have object permanence
Tertiary circular reaction - actively explore how objects can be used (12-18 months). Trial and error experimentation emerges
Mental representations and combinations (18-24 months)

Question 15

What is preoperational stage?

Answer 15

2-7
Major advances - symbolic representation
- symbolic representation (2-4) (e.g., pretend play)

Major weakness - egocentric, centration
- egocentric = difficulty seeing the world from others points of view (rationale imitation, 14months)

• centration = narrowly focused thought; focus on a single feature of object or event, ignoring other features

Question 16

What is concrete operational

Answer 16

7-11
Egocentric declines
Major advances:
- logical reasoning
- ability to attend to multiple dimensions
- solve conservation problems; class inclusion problems

Major weaknesses: limited to concrete situations; not abstract or hypothetical ones

Children performance on tasks can be influenced:
- context of task
- culture
- schooling

Question 17

What is formal operational?

Answer 17

11+
Able to think abstractly and hypothetically
Able to reason systematically about all possible outcomes
Stage not attained universally

Question 18

Weakness of Piagets theory?

Answer 18

Depicts children’s thinking as being more consistent than it is; does not account for variability in children’s performance
Underestimates cognitive competence of infants and young children
Undervalues influence of sociocultural environment on cognitive development
Vague about cognitive processes and mechanisms

Question 19

What are alternative theories?

Answer 19

Information processing
Sociocultural
Core knowledge
Dynamic systems

Question 20

What is info processing?

Answer 20

Cases neo-piagetian theory
Sieglers overlapping waves theory

Question 21

What is Cases neo-piagetian theory?

Answer 21

Cognitive change occurs as a series of four stages
Changes due to increases in central processing speed and working memory capacity

Question 22

What is Sieglers overlapping waves theory?

Answer 22

Child has number of strategies that can be used to solve problems
Overtime less efficient strategies are replaced by more effective ones

Question 23

What is sociocultural?

Answer 23

Children are social learners - they advance most when they collaborate with others who are more skilled

Zone of proximal development
Social scaffolding
Private speech