Piaget CD + ID Flashcards
cognitive development =
The development of all mental processes- particularly our thinking, understanding and reasoning skills.
development continues throughout our lifetime, but special focus is paid to what happens to development during childhood .
Piaget -
argued that children do not know less than adults but the way in which they think is different to adults.
He divided childhood into stages- each stage represents a new development in skill.
Piaget and role of schemas
schema -a package of knowledge/beliefs - this develops through experience. They also act as shortcuts to help us process the world around us more quickly
From infancy, schema begin to develop e.g. the “me-schema”- what a child knows about themselves.
schema develops with age to become more sophisticated
Piaget - motivation to learn
He believes we are pushed to learn when our existing schema don’t allow us to make sense of something new.
This causes us to feel “disequilibrium”- an unpleasant sensation (cognitive imbalance).
To limit this, we must adapt to the new situation by developing our understanding – process of accommodation/ assimilation.
When we do this, we experience “equilibration”- our preferred state (restored cognitive balance).
how learning takes place - 2 processes:
- assimilation
- accommodation
assimilation -
A form of learning that takes place when we acquire new information/more advanced understanding of an object, person or idea.
When understanding doesn’t radically change our understanding of something we incorporate (assimilate) it into our existing schema.
accommodation -
A form of learning that occurs when we acquire new information that changes our understanding of a topic to the extent to which we need to form a new one or drastically change the existing schema.
equilibration -
When either we experience assimilation or accommodation, that feeling that either of those two processes have caused e.g. disequilibrium disappears.
We feel balanced again (in a state of equilibration) and have escaped the discomfort that lack of balance has caused.
how do children learn + play
Piaget believes that children will learn through making mistakes.
Focus on active exploration- trial & error.
Piaget argued that children are scientists- they learn through experimenting.
strength of Piaget - CD
real world application - useful
E: Piaget’s understanding of how children learn (e.g. by exploring) has been useful in transforming teaching- pre-1960’s children sat in silence in rows copying from the board. Now replaced by discovery learning. More activity-based tasks allow children to construct their own understanding of the curriculum.
C: improved teaching would allow children to understand the knowledge more easily therefore their education would be improved.
HOWEVER there has been some discussion in education about the effectiveness of discovery learning.
There is no firm evidence that discovery learning works- children still need a lot of input from the teacher to learn so letting them discover things for themselves isn’t as effective as Piaget claimed. Children benefit from instruction from the teacher so children shouldn’t just be allowed to learn on their own- can lead to issues with understanding.
limitation of Piaget CD
sample to study motivation to learn
E: He argued that children learn because they are trying to escape the unpleasant sensation of disequilibrium, suggesting that motivation to learn must be innate. However, when critics have looked at his sample they have questions over his choices- he sampled his own children and then children at a university nursery, suggesting that the children he studied were highly intelligent.
C: can’t generalise findings to everyone else as not all children will have high intelligence to begin with. so doesn’t tell us about motivation to learn in all children
limitation of piaget CD
believed learning is individual process
E: different to many other theories of development that suggest that learning is a social process, and that others around, especially those more knowledgeable than us can support our learning. There is strong evidence to suggest that learning is enhanced by others and not an individual process as Piaget suggested.
C: This is a limitation because is suggests that Piaget’s theory may be incomplete as it doesn’t give enough emphasis on the role of others in our learning.
Piaget’s theory of intellectual development
he identified 4 stages
each stage characterised by different level of reasoning ability
every child will pass through stages in same order but ages of children may differ
- sensorimotor stage: birth to 2 years
Infants interact with the world through eyes, ears, handsand mouth- by 2 children will learn basic language skills.
Infant invents ways of solving problemsE.g., finding hidden toys. Often by trial & error.
OBJECT PERMANENCE- this skill is achieved by approx. 8 months - the ability to understand that if something is out of sight it still exists. Before 8 months, if an object goes out of sight, they won’t look for it (switch attention elsewhere). After 8 months, babies will continue to look for object even if they can’t see it.
pre operational stage (2-7)
By 2 a toddler is mobile and has some language skills, but they still lack adult reasoning.
They engage in imaginative play and learn as they play.
Piaget stated in this stage, children focus on 3 skills- egocentrism/conservation/class inclusion.
conservation
The ability to realise that quantity remains the same even when the appearance of an object or group of objects changes.
Understanding of number/mass/volume is poor. E.g.,if 5 buttons are stretched out in a lineand 5 buttons were in a pile, child would saythere were more buttons in the line becauseitwas longerwithout the skill of conservation (younger children in this stage).
conservation - buttons/pennies task
……..
. . . . . .
child w/o conservation would answer that bottom line has more because it’s longer.
those with conservation would say it’s the same amount just more spread out
egocentrism
The child’s tendency to only be able to see the world from their own viewpoint. This applies to physical objects as well as perspectives (e.g. in an argument).
If a child is egocentric, they can’t appreciate that everyone’s view is different- this is demonstrated by the three mountains task.
3 mountains task
Three model mountain- doll place on opposite side to child.
The doll would have seen the mountains at a different angle to the child.
The child was then asked to describe what the doll would see from where it was sat.
children who were more egocentric struggled to do this and their description matched what they could actually see rather than doll.
class inclusion
This skills is an advanced skill that means children can recognise that classes of objects have subsets and are themselves subsets of larger classes. Children without this skill struggle to place things in more than one class.
E.g. most children in the pre-operational stage know there are different breeds of dogs e.g. Labrador, pugs etc.
However, when 7-8 year olds are shown a picture of 5 dogs & 2 cats and asked “are there more dogs or animals?”- they often answered DOGS. This shows that children of this age can’t simultaneously see a dog as a member of the dog class and the animal class.
concrete operational stage (7-11)
By 7, most children have the skills of conservation/egocentrism/class inclusion.
Reasoning abilities become more developed they can only be applied to physical objects in child’s presence - concrete operations
Struggle with abstract reasoning/imagine objects or situations they cant see- e.g. mental arithmetic cant be carried out in child’s head.
formal operational stage (11-18)
From the age of 11, children become more capable of formal reasoning- they can focus on the form of an argument and not get distracted by its content. Child can think through complex ideas in their head.
strength of Piaget ID
methods used to collect data - obs and interviews
E: Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic observations of the children as well as diary descriptions charting their development. He also interviewed the older children (old enough to hold a conversation).
C: naturalistic obs have high ecological validity as it’s real life setting. Diary descriptions give qualitative data so more insight as it’s explained.
limitation of piaget ID
couldn’t objectively measure OP
E: Critics of Piaget argue that just because the child failed to search for the toy doesn’t necessarily mean they lacked object permanence. The child’s response could have been to do with the deliberate removal of toy rather than issues with object permanence.
C: children too young to ask so can’t clarify if behaviour was deliberate. so reduces understanding of OP and what ages children should develop it at., lowing the validity of the theory of intellectual development.
limitation of piaget ID
research into conservation is flawed
E: Critics of Piaget did not like that they moved the counters in front of the child and then asked where counters were. Child may have changed their answer as they didn’t want to give the same answer twice. In other conservation studies that did not change the appearance of the counters purposely in front of them, 72% of 4–6-year-old were able to give the correct answer, that there were the same as before.
C: suggests Piaget’s theory is unreliable as results aren’t accurate as children just changed answer. Researcher bias as he is the researcher conducting the studies so he wouldn’t prove his research wrong.
How is object permanence tested
Object permanence can be tested using the ‘A-not-B’ task which involves hiding a toy under location A in front of the child for several times in a row and asking the child to retrieve the toy; the toy is then hidden under location B and if the child continues to look for the toy under location A they have not acquired object permanence
Passing the ‘A-not-B’ task shows that the child understands that the toy still exists even though it cannot be seen
