Paper 3 - Child 4 - Cognitive development and education

Question 1

what is piaget’s theory of cognitive development

Answer 1

• Piaget is swiss
  schema - mental store of information on a topic
• babies are born with a schema that becomes more complex through 2 main processes:
• assimilation - adding new information to schemas
• equilibrium - mental balance with information (don’t feel overwhelmed)
• disequilibrium - feeling a lack of balance with new information
• This is a continuous cycle in life
• There are 4 stages of cognitive development which are universal and fixed
• sensorimotor stage - 0-2 years, baby learns object permanence
• pre-operational stage - 2-7 years, thinking lacks consistent logic
• concrete operational stage - 7-11 years, children can use logical thinking but only with physcial objects
• formal operational stage - 11+, children can apply logic to abstract ideas.
• educational application - a child has to be cognitively ready ( in the stages) to learn thing so it is the job of the teacher to assess what stage they’re in to not overwhelm them. The child is a ‘little scientist’ and makes mistakes and discovers knowledge for themselves.

Question 2

what is vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development

Answer 2

• communist russia
• agreed with piaget but emphasis on role of culture and social interaction
• sociocultrual context - more knowledgable abd experienced adults help the intellectual development of children by interacting with them and passing on knowledge and values by using language which is necessary. They learn what to learn and how to learn. Intermental process - 2 minds working together. Once information is taken it is is intramental.
• zone of proximal development - at any time a child at a partcular stage is capable of progresing further after social interaction with adults
• impact on education : elements of scafolding * recruitment - tutor gets child’s interest and help them stick to the task,
• reduction in degrees of freedom - simplifies task,
• direction maintenance - uses enthusiasm,
• marking critical features - highlights most relevant features
• frustration control - reduces stress,
• demonstration - modelling a task.
• collaborative learning - Students working together as a group

Question 3

what was the aim of Wood’s study on the role of turoring

Answer 3

to study the process of skill acquisition and problem solving.

Question 4

what was the method of Wood’s study

Answer 4

• controled observation
• lab experiment

Question 5

what is the sample of Wood’s study

Answer 5

• 30 children
• ten aged each - 3,4 and 5
• 5 boys and 5 girls in each group
• middle or lower class
• 5 mile radius of cambridge USA
• self selected sample in an ad
• each child was accompanied by their parent and has an individual session lasting between 20 mins and an hour

Question 6

what is the tutoring procedure in wood’s study

Answer 6

• each child tutored individually and sat at a small table with 21 blocks spread out on it
• there were 5 minutes of free play
• the tutor took 2 blocks and demonstrated how they could be joined together in a pair
  1. if the child ignored the tutor and continued to play - the tutor demonstrated again
  2. if the child selected blocks himself and tries to assemble them using a method like the tutor but missed a step - the tutor told the child it was incomplete and to fix it
  3. if the child took blocks presented by the tutor to construct for himself - the tutor corrected any mistakes

Question 7

what is the scoring system of wood’s study

Answer 7

• each act of construction was classified as
• trying to assemble blocks after tutor modelled (assisted)
• trying to assemble the blocks after selecting themm himself (unassisted)
• manipulating assembled blocks after tutor modelled them (assisted)
• manipulating assembled blocks after selcting them himself (unassisted)
• researcher classified tutors behaviour
• direct assistance
• verbal error prompt
• verbal attempt to get the child to make more changes

Question 8

what were the results for unassisted constructions in Wood’s study

Answer 8

• 3yo: 64.5,
• 4 yo: 79.3,
• 5yo: 87.5

Question 9

what are the results for types of interactions in wood’s study

Answer 9

• mainly verbal by reminding children to correct attempts

Question 10

what are the conclusions of Wood’s study

Answer 10

• allowed for the identification of scaffoldin techniques: recruitment, reduction in freedom, direction maintainence, marking critical features, frustration control, demonstration
• with age comes greater success, more complex operations and more accurate ways of completing tasks
• 3yo not as successful as 4yo but they were as sensitive to the difference between correct and incorrect constructions
• comprehension does precede production because 3 year olds could recognise a correct solution before they could provide it.
• younger children were not as ready to be tutored so they had to persuade them to do the task by tempting them in demonstration
• tutor of 3 year olds had to captivate their interests by keeping the task in front of them.
• tutor of 4 year olds had to prod and correct construction
• tutor of 5 year old had to confirm and check construction
• 6 year olds woulld need no tutor
• impact on education: tutors can promote a child’s cognitive growth by provding appropriately demanding tasks.

Question 11

evaluate the validity

Answer 11

1. internal validity - wood - used controlled observation in a lab, controlled extraneous varibles
2. low ecological validity - wood - artficial lab setting so children may not behave naturally compared to their own classes
3. low population validity - piaget used his own 3 children so an unrepresentitive sample. middle class. Swiss

Question 12

evaluate reliability

Answer 12

• internal relaibility - wood - standardised procedures easily replicated
• inter rater reliability - wood -all behaviours were catagorised and an inter rater reliability of 94% was achieved between 2 observers working independently on 594 video taped events

Question 13

evaluate ethnocentrism

Answer 13

• piaget used his own children who are middle class and swiss
• vygotski -saw scaffolding to advance learning to an end. this is because once a child understood the task they no longer needed a tutor. he saw this as an end goal which is ethnocentric becaise in other cultures collaborative learning is seen as desirable goal rather than independent goal (imposed etic)
• pierre conducted cross cultural research into testing piagets theory of cognitve development in indegenous people in canada, australia, kenya and ivory coast.

Question 14

evaluate sampling bias

Answer 14

• wood - low population validity - unrepresentitive sample, middle class
• piaget used his own 3 children middle class and swiss
• pierre conducted a cross cultural research into piaget’s cognitive development in indigenous peoeple in canada, australia, kenya and ivory coast

Question 15

evaluate nature/ nurture (individual/situational)

Answer 15

nature - piaget’s stages are universally fixed and linked to biological brain function
nurture - wood showed that a tutor helped capture interest in 3yo.
nurture - vygotski’s theory emphasises the role of social environement on the cognitive development of children

Question 16

evaluate freewill/determinism

Answer 16

• biological determinism - piaget’s stages are universally fixed and linked to brain function
• environmental determinism - a tutor can help capture interest
• freewill - wood showed that tutor intervention was highest in 3 year olds dropping by half for other ages. children choose to continue a task without enthusuastic support and become active learners

Question 17

evaluate reductionism/ holism

Answer 17

• biological reductionism - piaget’s stages are universally fixed and linked to brain function
• environmental reductionism - a tutor can help capture interest
• holism - wood showed that tutor intervention was highest in 3 year olds dropping by half for other ages. shows cognitive development and the role of emotions

Question 18

evaluate ethics

Answer 18

• right to withdraw - piaget’s children could not leave
• informed consent - wood got consent fomr parents.
• no harm - wood - children tested individually only took 20 mins to an hour, was fun lots of attention

Question 19

evaluate psychology as a science

Answer 19

• wood - high internal validity
• piaget - low populaion validity
• wood high inter rater relaibaility

Question 20

evaluate usefulness

Answer 20

• practical benefits- piagets rediness concept could hold children back but vygotski’s scagolding pushes children to expand and learn more - useful in a classroom
• new insights - wood tested elements of scaffolding and concluded that cognitive growth can be promoted in classroom environment
• misuse - pierre’s research into cross cultural children shows that children in australia are slower which could reinforce prejudice.

Question 21

evaluate social sensitivity

Answer 21

• labelling - woods child pps were middle class and the ages that they benefit from scaffolding, working class perform less well on cognitive tasks which lowers self esteem and engagement, teachers may judge them.
• study on interesting behaviour - stages of cognitive developemt cross culturally
• poor classroom policies - scaffolding should be based on the stage of development but some teachers may push children too far to try and develop them.

Question 22

what are the 2 applications for improving learning

Answer 22

• context dependent memory
• mind mapping

Question 23

what is context dependent memory

Answer 23

• cues can help us remember something if it is present when learn (code) the material and when we recall it
• you can physcially learn and recall in the same environment or do mental activities
• start with a mental image of somwhere you are familiar with,e.g. room
• form a mental image of everything you want to remember and ‘place’ them in locations of the room
• to recall them you take a mental walk through the place, each location acts as a cue to trigger your memory of the item associated with it

Question 24

what is the usefulness, effectiveness and practicalities of context dependent memory

Answer 24

• usefulness - may be less useful in multiple choice questions
• effectiveness - e.g. grant study
• practicalities - most exams are taken in large halls usually not available at other times so they dont get to encode material.

Question 25

what is mindmapping

Answer 25

• central element with branches of informaion
• using different colours and presentations to represent things
• the key is organisation as they help to structure knowledge in a meaning ful way
• forces the student to process the material semantically which is easier for recall.
• also can memorise what the mindmap looks like to visualise it in an exam and which topic links to which colour or area of the map

Question 26

what is the usefulness, effectiveness and practicalities of mind mapping

Answer 26

• usefulness - feeling of control and confidence, more motivation for revision
• effectiveness - some people may focus to much on the appearance than the knowledge
• practicalities - easy to learn