essay plan for Vygotsky

Question 1

discuss the strengths and weaknesses of Vygotsky’s theory of development

Answer 1

paragraph 1:
brief description of theory of cognitive development (how differs to Piaget’s?) and any support/other things to add for elements of it
- emphasises role of interactions not just of individual
- mediators supported through play
- functions, elementary and higher
- zone of proximal development as a flexible tool to apply in classroom
- egocentric speech, helping to problem solve etc.

paragraph 2:
main strength in application to education so discuss the strengths of this (and any weaknesses)
- scaffolding: found to be successful and flexible within classroom settings, also successfully incorporated at different ages and contexts (technology)
reciprocal instruction: found to be successful in aiding child and learners development and equally supports the role of scaffolding

paragraph 3:
limitations
- reducing independence so have to compromise and match level with engagement to make interesting and not stunt other important spheres of growth
- narrowed to school contexts but can be applied to others such as cooking
- failure to look at effect of emotional development but lack of correlation in intervention study so not a big issue

Question 2

paragraph 1?

Answer 2

sociocultural approach as emphasises role of interacting with others in your culture
first methods used involved syllogism, whereby correct answer involves thinking in an abstract way, finding that in a predominantly illiterate society with no interactions with more knowledgeable others, couldn’t think in abstract way (Vygotsky, 1931)
these findings required an explanation other than Piaget as he focused on the child as a means to their own development and adults merely challenging their thinking, indeed citing our difference to animals in terms of ‘abstract symbolic reasoning’ (Huitt et al, 2003)

mediators: tools assisting thinking processes, expanding development through better problem solving and understanding
for example, play is cited as a mediator, and vygotsky described it as facilitating imaginative thinking and practicing skills (Vygotsky, 1933), the importance of which in cognitive development is supported through a finding that more exploratory based play in young children was correlated to a higher IQ in a longitudinal study (Muentener et al, 2018)

functions: both elementary - biological so agreeing with Piaget e.g memory (found that the heritability estimate of working memory storage is just below 50% (Ando et al, 2001) and higher - requires mediators, e.g problem solving

zone of proximal development: gap between actual cognitive abilities and potential cognitive abilities - determined through problem solving accompanied by an adult (Vygotsky, 1978), emphasising importance of interaction with more knowledgeable people
support for this is that often reffered to in North America to justify instrcutional nature of teaching (Yamagata-Lynch, 2010) and its flexible as can be interactions with anyone more knowledgeable, using mediators of reading and writing and incorporates technology (Jones et al, 1998)
limitation that yet to predict school year progress better than IQ tests (Berk, 2001)

egocentric speech (which Piaget saw as useless): children talking but not taking into account the perspective of others (self-talk)
helping children solve problems (shown through use increasing with task complexity, Berk & Garvin, 1984), helping to direct thinking processes and initiate self-control (instructing themselves to wait in delay gratification tasks (Berk, 2001)
becomes inner speech at around 6-8

Question 3

paragraph 2?

Answer 3

main strength is application to education and support for the education system:

scaffolding - more knowledgeable partner changes amount and type of support given to fit learning needs during interaction, allowing cognitive growth through completion of the task - so initially lots of temporary help, but through growth of understanding, scaffolding lessens and help declines (Gibbons, 2002)

shown when used at 2, has indirect effect on executive functions at 4 through verbal abilities at 3 (Hammond et al, 2012)
can be expanded to include teachers, parents and peers and even whole classrooms (Smit et al, 2013)
shown to aid those with difficulties in the classroom, however important to reinforce this as can’t assume they will have grown directly from it (Broza et al, 2015)
found that cognitive abilities improved, even up to a week after, when guided play in 4-5 year olds (scaffolding) (Fisher et al, 2013)
found in 144 studies relating to computer based scaffolding for the sciences, that all age groups experienced positive cognitive effects from engaging with scaffolding, implicating support across different ages and contexts (Belland et al, 2017)

reciprocal instruction: teaching child skills critical to activity, then child tutors another based on what they have learnt from the teacher, so responsibility shifted to child, incorporating the ZPD and scaffolding (like self-scaffolding as child scaffolds another after teacher scaffolds them) (Leman & Gauvain, 2012)
supported through study teaching children to create an image with blocks, then those children successfully helping others non-verbally, supports this educational technique (Johnson-Pynn et al, 2002)
develops 2 parties as the ‘tutor’ child learns about the skills and teaching, whilst the learner child is assisted in the task like scaffolding (Gartner et al, 2000)

Question 4

paragraph 3?

Answer 4

limitations of the theory:

main limitation is the suggestion that the emphasis on assistance from more experienced individuals may undermine ability to work independently for example, may not fully development in a developmental stage e.g open-mindedness may be limited and replaced by goal-directed behaviour (Crain, 2000) so suggestion of compromise whereby teacher notices the engagement of the child to certain tasks to determine which level and type of material they should be given to maximise their interest without stunting areas of growth (Rogoff, 1998)

another limitation is regarding the narrowing of application to schools:
for example, in non-western cultures, much cognitive development may stem from learning from parents in work-related activities such as cooking, whereby they take the initiative after observing, with the aid of the parents (Rogoff, 2003)

a final proposed limitation is regarding the omittance of the impact of emotional development on cognitive development, however, a lack of correlation has been found between an intervention strengthening attachement via maternal sensitivity and cognitive development, suggesting this limitation may not be the most important (Zwonitzer et al, 2015)