Piaget

Question 1

what was the first main contribution made by Piaget ?

Answer 1

The way that children think changes qualitatively as they get older.

Question 2

What was the second main contribution made by Piaget ?

Answer 2

The changes are mainly driven by biological development.

Question 3

what is the main aim of cognitive development ?

Answer 3

to reach equilibrium

Question 4

what is disequilibrium ?

Answer 4

When there is an in balance between what is understood and what is encountered.

Question 5

How is imbalance reduced ?

Answer 5

by creating schema’s

Question 6

What are schemas ?

Answer 6

programmes that people construct to deal with the world.

Question 7

What are the two mechanisms of development ?

Answer 7

assimilation and accomodation

Question 8

What is assimilation ?

Answer 8

Involves the incorporation of new information into an existing schema (sucking a toy the same as a dummy)

Question 9

what is accomodation ?

Answer 9

adapts an existing schema in order to understand new information (dog=cat)

Question 10

What do accomodation and assimilation achieve ?

Answer 10

equilibrium

Question 11

what are the four stages of cognitive development ?

Answer 11

sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational.

Question 12

what is stage one ?

Answer 12

sensorimotor (0-2 years)
children learn to co-ordinate sensory input and motor actions using circular reactions (repetition)
Object permanance (objects still exist even when out of sight)

Question 13

what is stage two ?

Answer 13

pre-operational (2-7 years)
begin to represent the world with words, images and drawings.
Egocentric - the inability to see from another point of view (three mountain experiment)

Question 14

what is stage three?

Answer 14

concrete operational stage (7-11 years)
egocentricism is reduced.
Children can now perform actions mentally
Conservation - provides evidence of the child’s command of logical operations (conservation experiment )

Question 15

what is stage four ?

Answer 15

Formal operational stage (11-15 years)
children can now solve abstract problems
Piaget + Inhelder used the beaker problem to demonstrate how children apply logic to problem solving.

Question 16

strengths ?

Answer 16

Bryant - Piaget’s key contribution was to highlight radical differences in the way young children and adults think.

Question 17

weaknesses ?

Answer 17

• overestimated the ability of children’s abstract logic in formal operational stage
• cultural bias- European academic families
• three mountain experiment- not all children understand what a mountain is as they have never seen one.
• demand characteristics.

Question 18

IDA

Answer 18

Piaget’s theory combines nature (biological maturation) with nurture (experience)