Piaget

Question 1

(Piaget) Five general orientations to the theory:

Answer 1

1. Genetic epistemology
2. The biological approach
3. Structuralism
4. The stage approach
5. Piaget’s methodology

Question 2

What is a stage according to Piaget?

Answer 2

A stage is a period of time during which the child`s thinking and behavior tend to reflect a particular type of underlying mental structure.

Question 3

(Piaget) Five characteristics to the stage approach:

Answer 3

1. A stage is a structured whole in a state of equilibrium
2. Each stage derives from the previous stage, incorporates and transforms that stage and prepares for the next stage
3. The stages follow an invariant sequence
4. Stages are universal
5. Each stage includes a coming-into-being and a being

Question 4

Piaget’s methodology:

Answer 4

1. Combination of interviews with manipulation of objects

2. Combination of infant observation with little experiments

Question 5

What are the four stages of development according to Piget?

Answer 5

1. Sensorimotor
2. Preoperational
3. Concrete operational
4. Formal operational

Question 6

(Piaget) First stage: Sensorimotor:

Answer 6

birth to 2 years
Infants understand world in terms of their
overt, physical actions on the world.

1. A human starts life with a set of reflexes and inherited ways of interacting with the environment
2. Infants actively construct a model of the world by means of the sensory (perceptual) and motor (physical movement) systems
3. Sensorimotor period involves six stages

Question 7

(Piaget) Second stage: Preoperational:

Answer 7

2 to 7 years
Children can use symbols (mental
images, words, gestures) to represent
objects and events

Question 8

(Piaget) Third stage: Concrete operational:

Answer 8

7 to 11 years
Children acquire logical structures that
allow them to perform various mental
operations

Question 9

(Piaget) Fourth stag: Formal operational:

Answer 9

11 to 15 years
Mental operations can be applied to
purely verbal or logical statements

Question 10

(Piaget) 1.1. Modification of reflexes (birth to 1 month):

Answer 10

1. newborn as a bundle of reflexes
2. reflexes (e.g., sucking, grasping) are gradually modified when activated several times
3. babies transform reflexes into organized patterns of behavior (schemes)
4. construct primitive concepts about objects to suck, grasp, look at etc.

Question 11

(Piaget) 1.2. Primary Circular Reactions (roughly 1 to 4 months):

Answer 11

1. circular reaction is a behavior that is repeated over and over again and thus becomes circular
2. “primary” because circular reactions involve consequences that are centered on or around the infant`s body (e.g., thumb sucking)
3. circular reactions become deliberate, accompanied by feelings of pleasure

Question 12

(Piaget) 1.3. Secondary Circular Reactions (roughly 4 to 8 months):

Answer 12

1. secondary circular reactions are oriented to the external world, environmental consequences are of interest (e.g., noise of a rattle)
2. infants repeat movements that had produced an interesting effect

Question 13

(Piaget) 1.4. Coordination of secondary schemes (roughly 8 to 12 months):

Answer 13

1. infants combine their schemes in complex ways
2. they differentiate an instrumental (means) behavior and a goal behavior
3. infants can put together schemes to achieve a goal and apply mean-end behavior in new situations
   (example: remove a barrier to get an interesting object)
4. important outcome: anticipation of events

Question 14

(Piaget) 1.5. Tertiary circular reactions (roughly 12 to 18 months):

Answer 14

1. infants as scientists: they deliberately vary an action to see how this affects the outcome
2. example: let objects fall from different positions
3. trial-and-error exploration, discovery of new means through active experimentation

Question 15

(Piaget) 1.6. Invention of new means through mental combinations (roughly 18 to 24 months):

Answer 15

1. before stage 6, children have displayed their thinking to the world, now it begins to go underground
2. external physical exploration gives way to internal mental exploration
3. they now use mental symbols to represent objects and events

Question 16

(Piaget) Overview sensorimotor period:

Answer 16

1. Child actively learns about properties of objects and relations among them
2. Cognitive structures gradually become more tightly organized
3. Behavior gradually becomes more intentional
4. The self is gradually differentiated from the environment

Question 17

(Piaget) Sensorimotor concept of object permanence:

Answer 17

1. An object continues to exist even when one cannot see, hear or feel it
2. Knowledge necessary for a notion of a stable, predictable world
3. Development:
4. 1. Stages 1 and 2: infants do not search for object that disappeared
5. 2. Stage 3: infants search e.g., if object in only partially hidden
6. 3. Stage 4: children have the skills needed to look for hidden objects; however, they persist in searching in the place where they searched previously (A-not-B error)
7. 4. Stage 5: search successfully even if there are several (visible) displacements
8. 5.Stage 6: search for objects if displaced invisibly, as object is mentally represented

Question 18

(Piaget) Summary of preoperational stage:

Answer 18

1. What children achieved with actions on the world in the sensorimotor period is redeveloped, now in the area of mental representations
2. Mental representations stand for objects or events
   Two types:
   2.1. Symbols: bear some similarity to the objects or events they stand for (e.g., in symbolic play pretending that a cloth is a pillow)
   2.2. Signs: are arbitrarily related to events or objects (e.g., words)
3. Advantages of representational thought:
   3.1. Faster and more mobile
   3.2. Can deal with past, present and future
   3.3. Can recombine its parts to create ideas that refer to nothing in reality

Question 19

(Piaget) Characteristics of the preoperational period:

Answer 19

1. Preoperational: children have not yet acquired reversible mental operations
   - Time of preparation for the next stage
2. Piaget described children in terms of what they cannot do:
3. 1. Egocentrism
4. 2. Rigidity of thought
5. 3. Limited social cognition

Question 20

(Piaget) Egocentrism:

Answer 20

1. tendency to perceive, understand and interpret world in terms of self
2. children have trouble taking another person`s perspective
3. Task: three mountains

Question 21

(Piaget) Egocentric speech:

Answer 21

remarks are unrelated to those of the

other

Question 22

(Piaget) Rigidity of thought:

Answer 22

1. centration: tendency to attend to or think about one salient feature of an object or event and ignore other features
2. tendency to focus on states and ignore the transformation linking the states
3. lack of mental reversibility
   - example: conservation task

Question 23

(Piaget) 2nd stage: Limited social cognition:

Answer 23

Work on moral judgment: children judge the wrongness of an act according to external outcomes, ignore the person`s intentions

-Example: A boy who breaks five cups while trying to help his mother set the table is considered naughtier than a boy who breaks only one cup while trying to steal cookies from the cabinet

Question 24

(Piaget) Characteristics of the concrete operational period:

Answer 24

(roughly 7 to 11 years)

1. Mental operations take place: operation as internalized mental action that is part of an organized structure
2. With the ability to use operations, the child’s representations are no longer isolated or rigid as before
3. Acquisitions (examples):
4. 1. Concept of conservation (e.g., amount of liquid remains the same)
5. 2. Class inclusion: Concept that subcategories are part of a broader category
6. 3. Operations applied to relations
7. 4. Social world: take into account intentions in moral judgments
8. Concrete operational acquisitions
9. 1. do not develop at the same time
10. 2. each acquisition develops over a period of time

Question 25

(Piaget) Limitations of the concrete operational period:

Answer 25

1. operations can only be applied to concrete objects (present or mentally represented)
2. the final step is to apply the operations to purely verbal or logical statements

Question 26

(Piaget) Characterrisatics of the formal operational period:

Answer 26

(roughly 11 to 15 years)

1. Adolescents can take the results of concrete operations and generate hypotheses about their logical relations (i.e., operations on operations)
2. They can think logically and abstractly about events, even hypothetical ones
3. Scientific thinking develops: formulate hypotheses and test them against reality
4. Method: problem from physics, observation of problem-solving process
5. Social world: ability to consider abstract ideas, the future, possibilities
6. Adolescents complete their cognitive structures, but thinking continues to develop throughout adulthood

Question 27

(Piaget) What is the pendulum problem?

Answer 27

an example for the formal operational period.

-Task: find out which variables are responsible for
the time it takes for a pendulum to swing back and
forth:
1. Weight severity
2. Length of the string to which the weight is attached
3. The height from which the weight is released
4. The force with which the weight is pushed

-Systematic experimentation leads to solution

Question 28

(Piaget) By what processes does a child’s thinking progress?

Answer 28

1. Stagelike changes are due to many small sevelopments
2. These are driven by thinking processes:
3. 1. Organization: the mind is a coherent view of the world
4. 2. Adaptation: fit between the mind and the enviroment; two complementary processes:
5. 2.1. Assimilation: process of fitting reality into one’s cognitive organization
6. 2.2. Acommodation: adjustment in cognitive organization when reality does not fit our expectations
   - ->Both are closely intertwined
7. 3. Equilibration:
8. 3.1. every organism strives toward equilibrium with the enviroment and equilibrium within itself
9. 3.2. when assimilation and accomodation are in balanced coordination, equilibrium is achieved
10. 3.3. change in either organism or enviroment leads to disequilibrium which must be corrected
11. 3.4. equilibrium is the grand process that intergrates and regulates all of the elements of development

Question 29

(Piaget) What is the basic nature of humans?

Answer 29

Piaget`s worldview was organismic:
1. The child as self-regulating, organized whole striving to maintain
equilibrium by correcting cognitive imbalances
2. Activity and self-regulation cause continual change

Question 30

(Piaget) Is development qualitative or quantitative?

Answer 30

Piaget saw both qualitative and quantitative changes, but emphasized qualitative changes in structures from stage to stage.

1. Quantitative changes: schemes, operations, or other cognitive skills become stronger, more easily activated, more efficient, or more consistent
2. Qualitative changes: changes in structure from stage to stage
3. Qualitative and quantitative changes build on each other

Question 31

(Piaget) How do nature and nurture contribute to development?

Answer 31

Piaget emphasized interaction of innate and experiential factors
• Four-factor “formula” for development:
Development = physical maturation + experience with the physical
environment + social experience + equilibration

Question 32

(Piaget) What is it that develops?

Answer 32

1. essence of cognitive development: structural change
2. structural change gives meaning to and influences change in the
   content of thought

Question 33

(Piaget) Applications of Piaget’s theory:

Answer 33

1. Piaget`s theory influenced educators
2. Notion of “readiness”
3. Learning most likely occurs if children actively participate
4. A teacher mainly provides guidance and resources so that children can teach themselves
5. Teachers should be aware of individual differences in learning

Question 34

(Piaget) Evaluation: Strengths:

Answer 34

1. Recognition of the central role of
cognition
2. Discovery of surprising features of
children`s thinking
3. Wide scope
4. Ecological validity

Question 35

(Piaget) Evaluation: Weaknesses:

Answer 35

1. Inadequate support for the stage
notion
2. Inadequate account of mechanisms
of development
3. Need for a theory of performance
4. Slighting of social and emotional
aspects of development
5. Underestimation of abilities
6. Methodological and stylistic barriers