Piaget's Development Theory

Question 1

How our thinking skills change as we grow older

Answer 1

Cognitive Development

Question 2

In Piaget’s theory, children go through the same stages in the same fixed order for every child

Answer 2

Invariant

Question 3

Children go through the same stages everywhere, no matter different cultures and/or experiences

Answer 3

Universal

Question 4

Children learn by developing mental models of the world and how to react to it

Answer 4

Schemas

Question 5

When new information is fit into an existing schema

Answer 5

Assimilation

Question 6

When new information does not fit into an existing schema causing the schema to be changed or a new one to be made

Answer 6

Accommodation

Question 7

Sensori-motor Stage

Answer 7

0-2 歳
・infant used its senses and movement to explore the world
・infant develops a 「body schema」 - - > recognises it exists
・infants attains 『object permanence』 - - > it learns that objects it can’t see are still there

Question 8

Pre-operational Stage

Answer 8

2-7 歳
・『animism』- - > thinking inanimate objects have feelings, eg teddy’s hurt etc
・『egocentrism』- - > thinking others can see, think and feel in the same way they do/ everyone experiences the world in the same way Ｉ do - - > shown in the 「Three Mountains 」task
・『symbolic thinking』- - > words represent objects, a box represents a car etc

Question 9

Concrete operational Stage

Answer 9

7-11 歳
・child is able to 『de-centre』- - > see things from another’s point of view and think about more than one factor at the same time
・child develops 『conservation』- - > knows that quantity stays the same when the appearance changes : length, number etc
・the child develops 『reversibility』- - > can think/act out a problem in reverse to solve it
・the child also achieves 『seriation』(arranging things in order) and 『linguistic humour』(word jokes/puns)

【this is a joke】

Question 10

Formal operational Stage

Answer 10

11+ 歳
・problems are solved using 『abstract thinking』- - > in your head without needing paper or objects to solve them
・problems are solved in 「systematic」, scientific ways - - > testing one variable at a time
・「hypothetical」thinking - - > considering things you have no experience of eg, you have been hit by a truck and have been isekaied into a generic jrpg world where everyone to some extent can use magic and you can too apparently

Question 11

Criticism １

Answer 11

・the stages are not as fixed or as rigid as Piaget said - - > some studies have shown that some children achieve object permanence or de-centre at a younger age
๑ thinking doesn’t develop in the same way for children everywhere eg, aboriginal children attain concrete operational thinking earlier - - > thought to be useful for survival
๑ nearly half of the adults in somestudues fail to show abstract thinking - - > since they haven’t reached the formal operational stage, the theory isn’t 「universal」
๑​ Piaget only focused on logical thinking - - > he ignored other kinds of thinking eg, creative thinking
๑​ Piaget only describes the kinds of thinking a child can and can’t do - - > he doesn’t explain how the changes in think occur

Question 12

Criticism ２

Answer 12

・Piaget’s theory can be called 「reductionist」- - > he doesn’t take into account that teaching can affect cognitive development

Question 13

Seriation

Answer 13

Being able to arrange things in order by eg, height, width etc

Question 14

Abstract thinking

Answer 14

Solving problems in your head without needing pen and paper

Question 15

Hypothetical thinking

Answer 15

Being able to consider things you have never experienced eg, 魔法力

Question 16

Systematic

Answer 16

Testing one variable at a time

Question 17

De-centre

Answer 17

Being able to see something from a different point of view

Question 18

Conservation

Answer 18

Knowing that the quantity of something is still the same even if its appearance changes

Question 19

Reversibility

Answer 19

Being able to think or act out a problem in reverse to solve it

Question 20

Linguistic humour

Answer 20

Take a guess at what this is

Question 21

Animism

Answer 21

Thinking inanimate objects have feeling in the same way we do

Question 22

Egocentrism

Answer 22

My perspective is the only perspective

Question 23

Symbolic thinking

Answer 23

Words representing objects or maybe a box representing a car

Question 24

Body schema

Answer 24

私がいるのは知ってる

Recognising your own existence

Question 25

Object permanence

Answer 25

Even if I can’t see something, it’s still there

Question 26

Cognitive development

Answer 26

How our thinking changes as we get older

Question 27

Invariant

Answer 27

Children go through the same cognitive stages in the same fixed order - - > they don’t vary

Question 28

Universal

Answer 28

Children go through the same stages, no matter where they are in the world/ different cultures and experiences

Question 29

Schemas

Answer 29

Mental models that we use to identify things and so we know how to react to them. It’s how we learn

Question 30

Assimilation

Answer 30

When new information is fitted into an already existing schema

Question 31

Accommodation

Answer 31

When new information doesn’t fit into an existing schema, you 『accommodate』for it by changing an existing schema or making a new one

Question 32

Piaget (1952) - Conservative of number

   Background / hypothesis

Answer 32

・Piaget created many tasks to find out when children had acquired different forms of conservation

๑ Hypothesis : children in the concrete operational stage will be able to conserve and children in the Pre-operational stage will not

Question 33

Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number

     Design

Answer 33

・natural experiment - - > the independent variable (age) varied naturally
・independent measures design - - > each child in each age group was only tested once
・cross-sectional study - - > he tested children of different ages

Question 34

Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number

Sample

Answer 34

・a small of Swiss children from Geneva (the actual size of the sample wasn’t reported)
・it included Piaget’s own children

Question 35

Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number

Materials / apparatus

Answer 35

・counters

Question 36

Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number

          Procedure

Answer 36

・each child was shown two rows of counters, equally spaced
・the child was asked if there were the same number of counters in each row
・then one of the rows was spread out and the same question was asked again

Question 37

Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number

         Results

Answer 37

・3-4 year olds (in the pre-operational stage) mostly said that the spread out row had more
counters
・a few 5-6 year olds (at the end of the pre-operational stage) said that they both still had the same number, but they were unable to explain their thinking
・most concrete operational children successfully stated that both rows still had the same number, and they were able to explain why they thought this

Question 38

Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number

          Conclusion

Answer 38

・the results supported Piaget’s hypothesis that conservation of number is acquired at the start of the concrete operational stage

Question 39

Piaget (1952) - Conservation of number

         Criticisms

Answer 39

・the sample was culturally biased - - > he only tested Swiss school children. Children from
other countries might have been affected by different education and upbringing, so the
findings can’t be generalised to all cultures
・as a lab experiment it had low ecological validity - - >it was an artificial situation which
might not make sense: why did the adults change one row? When a later experiment got
a ‘naughty teddy’ to re-arrange a row of sweets, 60% of pre-operational children passed
the conservation test
・Piaget asked the same question twice, before and after re-arranging the counters. This
made children think there must be a different answer, so their response might have been
due to demand characteristics rather than being unable to conserve. When the question
was only asked once after re-arranging the row, many more children got the right answer

Question 40

Third stage

Answer 40

Concrete operational

Question 41

Second stage

Answer 41

Pre-operational

Question 42

Fourth stage

Answer 42

Formal operational stage