Lecture 4 - Piaget and Vygotsky

Question 1

Theory

Answer 1

Set of ideas and principles that can explain something and make predictions
Synthesise/ account for a wide array of findings
Describe, explain and predict behaviour
Empirical research can then test these predictions by collecting and analysing data

Question 2

Cognitive Development

Answer 2

Mental processes that support learning, memory, attention, use of knowledge… (how these develop)

Question 3

Piaget

Answer 3

How children understand the physical and social world
Constructivist – child constructs knowledge by engaging with world, generates and tests theories
Behaviourism was dominant – child passively soaks up information from the environment
Interested in the errors children make – insight into processing

How a child construct their world and knowledge by seeing whats arround them and interpretting it

Child thought of them as mini scientists with their hypothesis and going into world around them to test this

Question 4

Piaget’s key principles

Answer 4

Influences on development:
Maturation: unfolding of biological changes that are genetically programmed
Activity: child as an active learner, exploring the environment
Social transmission: learn from others
Equilibration: when pre-existing schemes or ways of thinking about an object do not fit with our experiences we adjust to re-establish balance – this is how our thinking moves forward
Assimilation: “adding” of information to existing structure
Accommodation: reorganising the structure to take account of new information

Question 5

Piaget: stages of development

Answer 5

Qualitative shifts from stage to stage
At any given point in development, children reason similarly on many different problems across different domains (e.g. maths, language, social cognition)
New stage = major shift in underlying structure
UNIVERSAL – All children go through all stages
INVARIANT order of stages – All children go through the same stages, in the same order
Rate of development varies

Question 6

Piaget’s stages -> birth to 2yrs

Answer 6

Sensorimotor
Building schemes through sensory and motor exploration
Child builds on basic reflexes
Has six substages increasing from simple and complex reflexes to more purposeful actions
Develops object permanence
Sixth substage: use of symbolic thought and deferred imitation

Question 7

Piagetian sensorimotor tasks

Answer 7

One of Piaget’s key contributions to child development was the use of novel methods to probe development
Object permanence: objects still exist when we can’t see them
A-not-B error: 10 month old child perseverates, continuing to look at the initial location

Child did not know about object perminance- hid a lion in a box to see what child would do, then changed to the box next to it but child kept looking in the initial location
Using the reaching and grabbing they can do to learn to perceive this

Question 8

Piaget’s stages -> 2 - 7 yrs

Answer 8

Preoperational
Preparing for concrete operations
Symbolic: symbols (e.g., language) used to represent objects/the world
Language development, play, deferred imitation -> can develop before but most here
Egocentric: limited appreciation of others’ perspectives
Cannot systematically transform (operate on, manipulate) representations or ideas

Question 9

Piagetian preoperational tasks

Answer 9

Conservation tasks
Making two lines of the same number coins- thought their were more in the longer line but when told to count realised they the same

A preoperational child doesn’t recognise that changing an object’s appearance doesn’t change its basic properties
Lack of understanding of reversibility -> inability to reverse mental processes
Centration: focusing on one dimension/characteristic of an object or situation (e.g. focused on length instead of number)

Question 10

Piaget’s stages -> 7 - 11 yrs

Answer 10

Concrete operational
Operation – Emergence of ability to transform objects in mind (move objects in mind without having to in real life)
Logic – First signs of logical thinking
Reversibility – Ability to mentally reverse an operation
Decentration – Understanding that change on one dimension can be compensated for by change in another

Question 11

Piaget’s stages -> 11 yrs +

Answer 11

Formal operational
Characterised by hypothetico-deductive reasoning (like a scientist)
Deducing hypotheses from a general theory
Generate predictions
Systematically test predictions, holding one factor constant, vary another factor

Question 12

Piaget;s pendulum problem

Answer 12

What determines the speed of the pendulum?
Concrete operational child will vary factors (length of string, weight of pendulum, force) randomly
Formal operational child will systematically vary one factor at a time
Concrete operational child can manipulate objects in mind while formal operational child can manipulate ideas in mind

Question 13

Piaget: critical evaluation

Answer 13

General consensus that thought is structured
Constructivist view
– Cognitive development not just learning (nurture)
– Cognitive development not just unfolding of innate structure (nature)
– Cognitive development not passive (behaviourism), but the result of children’s active construction of knowledge
Account for wide array of findings – describe, explain and predict behaviour
Single domain general theory
Well-replicated
Seems as though development stops at 11 -> not the case
Underestimated children- supported younger children could do it

Question 14

Key ideas stimulating Piaget’s research

Answer 14

Child actively seeks and constructs knowledge
Development follows qualitative shifts/stages
0-2 cognitive driven by sensorimotor system

Question 15

Methods for investigating cognitive development

Answer 15

Observation
Clinical interviews (question and answer)

Question 16

Piaget’s contributions to pedagogy

Answer 16

Education should help children learn how to learn, discovery learning
Listen to children, pay attention to their thinking processes
Set up situations with unexpected consequences, hypothesis testing e.g., what do we think will happen?
Concept of differentiation, materials can be taught at different levels, adjust to match child’s capacities
Individual differences, children develop at different rates

Though understood some age variations in age of development where we now say the differenceis much larger
Vast differences at late primary in development stages

Question 17

Vygotsky

Answer 17

Socio-cultural theory of cognitive development
Influences on development
– Social interactions with more experienced others (parents, older children, teachers): co-constructed processes are internalised
– Learning
– Language (and other mediators)

Question 18

Vygotsky key principles

Answer 18

Mediators: psychological tools generated by the social and cultural developmental context – language, counting, art, writing
Elementary mental functions: biological and emerge spontaneously – basic attention, perception, memory
Higher mental functions: coordinate cognitive processes, use mediators – Voluntary attention, intentional remembering, abstract thinking, problem solving 27 development

Question 19

Vygotsky on development

Answer 19

Didnt have stages -> believed less rigid and more continuous
Development characterised in different way depending on stage:
(infancy) affiliation –> play –> peers –> work –> theorising (early old age)

Question 20

Private speech

Answer 20

Also known as Egocentric speech
Talking through what they are doing -> not always out loud
Vital in driving development

Foundation for all higher cognitive processes, e.g. – Sustained attention, memory rehearsal and recall, categorization, planning and problem solving, self-reflection
Allows children to:
– Reflect on thinking and behaviour
– Plan appropriate action
Helps guide behavior
Increases with task difficulty -> More private speech -> better performance on complex tasks
Piaget called this “egocentric speech”, or “talk for self” and did not think it served a useful cognitive function

Children with educational needs use more and for longer

Question 21

Zone of proximal development

Answer 21

Mechanism by which children can perform tasks they cannot do alone when they have support from expert

Allow children to reach potential - what they can do with support

Question 22

Vygotsky - importance of social interactions

Answer 22

Intersubjectivity
Process by which two participants start task with different levels of understanding, but finish task with same level

Scaffolding
Process by which teachers adjust level of instruction to suit child’s current level of understanding e.g. by breaking a task down into simpler components

Guided participation (Rogoff, 2003) 
Less formal teaching situations than those where scaffolding occur 
More knowledgeable other can guide behaviour through joint participation in a task, or in play.

Question 23

Zone of proximal development in research

Answer 23

Wertsch et al. (1980)
Problem solving with a parent (mother) 
33 months, 43 months, 53 months 
Task: complete a puzzle 
Key DV: gaze to model 
Key IV: age of participant (between-subjects) 

Results: mother-directed gazes decrease with age i.e. prompt not needed
Conclusions: roles within this learning situation change with age

Rogoff, Ellis and Gardner (1984)
Mothers pay more attention to structuring conceptually “difficult” tasks (mathematics) as opposed to conceptually easy ones (household chores)

Question 24

Vygotsky: make-believe play

Answer 24

Crucial to 
 – Cognitive development
 – Social development 
Provides children with self-generated ZPD
 – Different approaches
 – More complex problems 
Not so strongly rule-based
Experience of responding to internal ideas, not external stimuli -> self-regulation

Question 25

Vygotsky- critical evaluation

Answer 25

Focus on language de-emphasizes other key factors, such as observation and other learning methods
Underestimates role of nature (Piaget too)? Evidence from infant studies
Vygotsky was very interested in instruction but the implications of his work for teaching have been largely surmised by others
No develop into practise

Question 26

Vygotsky contributions to pedagogy

Answer 26

Need to do more than just arrange an environment that is conducive to learning, need to guide/assist learning •
Instruction → internalisation → learning
Imitation → learning (modelling)
Collaborative learning between peers e.g., reciprocal teaching
Scaffolding: work with more knowledgeable others (parents, teachers, older pupils…)
Use language to organise thinking, dialogue and discussion
Acknowledges individual differences
Tailoring tasks, differentiation
Found the need for support
Reciprocal teaching- prepare students to run own discussion, taking turns to lead: teacher models aproach and set of strategies then children model for other students
Language to organise thinking- practise writing= organise thoughts better, using your language to structure thoughts and understand better
Tailor tasks to support less able- built from his theory

Question 27

Piaget vs. Vygotsky

Answer 27

Stages vs. continuous
Independence vs. support and learning
Learning to learn, active and driving learning vs. rely on parents, learning together
Both acknowledge pricate speech- Just a thing thats there vs. Cricual driver for learning
Some variation, limit to individual differences vs. more open to them, driven by many things
Rigid- what and when (under and over estimate some) vs. more ability and potential focus- less rigid and more continuous and free to be anwhere on a spectrum of development at each ages
Less vs. more social and cultural impacts

Question 28

Information processing theories

Answer 28

Focus on role of attention, memory, self-control etc. as mechanisms of change
Development involves overcoming processing limitations
Not a unified theory, more an approach

Components hard to combine into broad picture
Computer metaphors simplify real-life experience; overlooks nonlinear aspects, interaction with others
Slow to include biology, evolution

Until ability to develop short term memory and focus and executive function- suboptimal learning

Question 29

Neuroconstructivism

Answer 29

Emphasises both genes and the environment
Motivated by advances in developmental cognitive neuroscience
Brain focus

Piaget- thought 3 theory could explain everything
Thought must be some biological contraints- brain develops to become more specific to some tasks over others; pulls other theories together

Question 30

Developmental cognitive neuroscience

Answer 30

Behaviour gives insite to cognition -> Cognition drives behaviour
Draws in genetics and interaction with enviroment
Relationship between changes in the brain and cognitive development/learning

Interdisciplinary: psychology, biology, neuroscience and medicine
Developmental approach: change, plasticity in the brain Focus is cognition: mental processes
Using neuroscientific method: looking at neural correlates of cognitive/behaviour

Feild held back considerably by technology- uncommon for children in an fMRI,
Scary and strange for them, to get image of childs brain

Expensive
New and developing field
Tasks that can be used alongside these methodologies fairly limited
Neuroscience experiments vs. the real world (e.g., classroom)
Correlation ≠ causation
Misinterpretation very common/easy, can have expensive and distressing effects
Difficult to do complex tasks in fMRI- noisey and lying down

Question 31

Rogoff (2003)

Answer 31

• pay attention to how learn
• always learninng what is important
• not aware of our own culture until seen others
• USA vs. guatimala: develop using community, welcomed in adult settings and participate in adult work, a part of community from young age, can explore
  Segregated in middle class: cant choose where go and when, restrictions, little to observe of adult work in the home (usually not in the home)
• informal learning in home and community: differences and influences of culture