Cognitive Development - Piaget

Question 1

What is a schema?

Answer 1

A building block of knowledge; a mental representation of what things are.

Babies develop the schema over time. A baby has a schema for sucking which can be applied over time to different situations.

Schemas get changed and added in order to meet the demands of the environment. This happens through adaption.

Question 2

What is adaption?

Answer 2

The process by a which a child’s schemas are developed to fit with their experience of the world.

The better the child’s schemas are adapted to their environment the more able the child will be able to make sense of events and respond appropriately.

Question 3

What is assimilation and an example of it.

Answer 3

Fitting new information into existing schemas so that new things can be done.

e.g. using same schema to put on a t shirt as to put on a jumper.

Question 4

What is accommodation and an example of it.

Answer 4

Changing schemas to be able to do new things, or create new ones.

e.g. spoon grip needs to be modified to hold a fork.

Question 5

What is Equilibrium?

Answer 5

When a child has created and changed all of its schemas and do everything that it needs to do, child is in a state of cognitive balance.

Question 6

What is Disequilibrium?

Answer 6

A state of cognitive imbalance can occur when our understanding of the world is inconsistent with incoming information.

Question 7

What is Discovery Learning?

Answer 7

This is learning things through discovering them for yourself as a result of active exploration.

This is reflected in nursery school - this helps children assimilate and accommodation.

Question 8

Piaget’s 1st stage

Answer 8

Sensorimotor Stage. Birth - 2 years

Question 9

Birth - 8 Months

Answer 9

• Little evidence of thinking.
• Children interact mostly through their sensations and movement.
• Child has no self concept.
• Little awareness of the past or understanding objects or people exist.

Question 10

8 - 24 Months

Answer 10

• Childs actions become intentional.
• Trial and error becomes apparent.
• Show simple pretend play.
• Language development starts to occur.
• The child develops its self concept and object concept.

Question 11

What is object concept?

Answer 11

Awareness that objects exist independently of us and continue to exist even when we are not observing them.

Question 12

What is object permanence?

Answer 12

knowing that an object exists, even when it’s hidden. It requires the ability to form a mental representation of the object.

Question 13

Piaget - Toy under blanket study

Answer 13

Aim:
What age children acquire OP.

Method:
Hid a toy under a blanket while the child was watching. He would observe the child to see if it would look for it as evidence for OP.

Results:
Searched for the toy at 8 months. If the toy was hidden in other place after being under the blanket they’d search for it at 12 months.

Conclusion:
OP develops at around 8 months.

Question 14

Critical Research

Answer 14

• Studied OP 1-4 month children/
• They turned the light off so the object was not visible and watched with infrared camera.
• Children reached out for it up to 90 seconds after it became visible. Children acquired OP much younger.

Question 15

Evaluation of OP

Answer 15

• Underestimated age children acquired OP.
• Infants under 8 months may not have searched for toy because they lacked the motor skills to do so.
• Covering the toy may have inferred to the child that they were not allowed it so the child failed to continue to reach it.

Question 16

Piaget’s 2nd stage - The Preoperational Stage. 2-7 years

Answer 16

The child is not yet able to perform mental operations

Question 17

Preconceptual Period

Answer 17

Child begins to make more use of symbols, like pretending a toilet roll is a car.

Question 18

What is egocentrism?

Answer 18

A child’s inability to see a situation from another persons point of view. They assume other people see, hear and feel exactly the same as they do.

Question 19

Piaget and Inhelder - 3 Mountain Study

Answer 19

Aim:
At what age a child decentres.

Method:
Doll was placed on one side of the mountains and child on the other. Child given 10 pictures of the mountains at different positions and picked the scene the doll would see. If they picked the dolls view, they were not egocentric.

Results:
4 year old children pictures of their own view, 6 year olds picked different pictures and not always the correct one. 7/8 year olds picked the correct one.

Conclusion:
Children are egocentric for most of the preoperational stage.

Question 20

Critical Research

Answer 20

• Hughes redesigned Piaget 3 mountains task and created an intersecting wall, where a task was created in which the child had to move the naughty boy away from the policeman.
• The policeman was placed in different positions and had to see if the policeman could see the boy. A second policeman was added and the child had to place the naughty boy where they both can’t see him.
• 90% of the 30 children aged 3-5 did it correctly. Contradicting Piaget’s task that it was too difficult.

Question 21

Evaluation of 3 mountain task

Answer 21

• Critics suggest the task is not a valid measure of perspective taking. Looking at a 3D model of mountains is an unfamiliar task for children.
• Not easy to pick a 3D picture rather than a real 3D view, so children may have found it difficult to do the task rather than being egocentric.
• Lack of motivation, children are not really interested in mountain tasks. Supported by a similar study where they used characters from Sesame Street and the child correctly identified the views.

Question 22

The Intuitive Period

Answer 22

Children’s judgments are influenced by the appearance of the objects appearance. Children are still unable to perform mental operations such as conservation.

Question 23

What is conservation?

Answer 23

The ability to understand that redistributing material does not affect its mass, number or volume.

Question 24

Conservation of Mass

Answer 24

• Child shown 2 equal balls of clay and asked if they had the same amount in them.
• When the child said same, one ball was coiled into a sausage and the same question was asked again.
• PO children said more in the sausage.

Question 25

Conservation of Numbers

Answer 25

• Child shown 2 lines of 6 beads at equal length and asked if the lines had the same number of beads.
• When child said same, one line was spread out so looks like there’s more and question was asked again.
• PO children said there’d be more beads.

Question 26

Conservation Liquids

Answer 26

• Child shown 2 beakers of water, filled to the same amount and asked if there was the same amount of water.
• When child said yes, one beaker was poured into a longer, thinner beaker and question was asked again.
• PO child would say there’s more water.

Question 27

Critical Research

Answer 27

• Thought children might get confused with the questions in the conservation tasks.
• Designed conservation of number task where the change in rows was done by a naughty teddy and messed one of the rows up.
• 60% of 6 year olds were able to conserve.

Question 28

Evaluation of the conservation task

Answer 28

• Language used in Piaget’s tasks may have been more difficult for the younger children to conserve.
• The tasks don’t make human sense. The perceived intention influences the success of the task, children are more able capable than Piaget believed so the children got confused as it was too simple.

Question 29

Piaget’s 3rd stage - Concrete Operations. 7-11 years

Answer 29

Children develop mental operations, so they overcome limitations of the PO stage.
Egocentrism is left behind; children overcome centration and become decentered.

Question 30

What is decentered?

Answer 30

The ability to take more than one factor into account when judging a situation.

Question 31

What is an operation?

Answer 31

A rule-following transformation which we can make using our mental representation. E.g. Arithmetical operations.

Question 32

What is a seriation task?

Answer 32

Where children can put concrete objects into a logical sequence such as size.

Question 33

What is class inclusion?

Answer 33

When children understand that some classes of objects include other classes of objects.

Question 34

Piaget & Szeminska - Class Inclusion

Answer 34

• 20 beads: 18 brown, 2 white. Children asked 3 questions.
• 1. Are the beads wooden.
  2. More brown or white beads
  3. More brown or wooden beads.
• PO children said brown in the 3rd question and CO children said wooden, showing class inclusion.
• Shows they are unable to understand difference between whole and part classes until they reach the CO stage.

Question 35

Critical Research

Answer 35

• Donaldson showed 6 year old children 4 cows; 3 black and 1 white cow sleeping.
• When asked if there was more black or sleeping cows, 48% answered correctly.
• Shows 6 year olds understand class inclusion if the wording of the question is accessible.

Question 36

Piaget’s 4th Stage - Formal Operational Stage. 11+

Answer 36

Children can apply operations on abstract and unreal situations as well as concrete situations.

Question 37

What is reasoning hypothetically?

Answer 37

Children can suggest what might be the result of something were to happen.
They can solve problems in a methodological way.

Question 38

What is flexible thinking?

Answer 38

Children can try and solve a problem in one way and if doesn’t work, try another solution using a range of strategies.

Question 39

Inhelder and Piaget - Pendulum Study

Answer 39

Method:
Participants given string and weights. The task was to find out what factors affect the rate at which a pendulum swings. They could vary the weight, length of string, force of push and height of release but only vary one factor at a time.

Results:
Children not in FO stage would change more than one factor at a time.

Conclusion:
Shows that systematic logical reasoning is a feature of the FO stage.

Question 40

Criticisms of Piaget theory

Answer 40

• Piaget’s concepts are too vague and unclear so they’re difficult to test for their existence.
• Stage like theory is too rigid; as a consequence he added the idea of horizontal decalage. This means the child could show characteristics of more than one stage at a time.

Question 41

Method evaluation of Piaget theory

Answer 41

• Used small samples that are unrepresentative as they were Swiss children and often his own so can’t be generalised.
• Assumed if a child didn’t succeed at a task it was because they lacked inability, but may have been other reasons why they got it wrong.
• Some of his testing was confusing, factors such as memory, language, context, were not considered so Piaget may have underestimated children’s abilities.

Question 42

Positive evaluation of Piaget’s theory

Answer 42

• Research is very simple, so it is easy to conduct and understand which makes them innovative and creative.
• Piaget’s research has been vastly applied to education so it had influenced early years education a great deal.
• His stages are universal so has been supported by many researchers who have found the exact same thinking pattern in many different countries.