Piaget's Stages of Development Flashcards
As a child matures and goes through a range of experiences…
their schemas develop further. This allows the child to go through stages of cognitive development
What are the four key stages of development that children go through according to Piaget?
- Stage 1 - sensorimotor stage
- Stage 2 - Pre-operational stage
- Stage 3 - Concrete operational stage
- Stage 4 - Formal operational stage
Stage 1
Sensorimotor stage
Stage 1: Sensorimotor stage
- 0-2 years
- in this stage, infants explore the world through physical sensation and developing basic physical co-ordination.
- At this stage, they mainly learn from trial and error. E.g. they learn that they can move their body delibaretely in particular ways and eventually learn that they can move other objects aswell
Limitation of Sensorimotor stage:
Object permanence
Object permanence
- this is the ability to know that even tho something can no longer be seen, it still exists
- By around 8 months old - children gain object permanence
Stage 2
Pre-operational stage
Stage 2: Pre-operational stage
- 2-7 years
- In this stage, infants have some rudimentary logic BUT it cannot be used to understand how the world works which can lead to reasoning errors
- e.g. animism - the belief that inanimate objects have feelings (e.g. teddy bear)
What are the three cognitive limitations at the pre-op stage:
- lack of conservation
- egocentrism
- unable to do class inclusion
Conservation (or lack thereof)
- Children lack conservation at this stage - they lack the ability to know that even though the outward appearance of something changes, its characteristics remain the same.
Egocentrism
This is the inability to see from the perspective of others
Example of Egocentrism
Piaget’s three mountains experiment:
- he asked children to view a model of 3 mountains from different angles and asked them to pick the view that a doll would see.
- children in this stage were unable to see the perspective of the doll and how the doll might have viewed the 3 mountains and ended up always picking their own view
Unable to do class inclusion
- children are able to place objects into catagories (classes)
- a lack of this ability however means that they struggle to understand that catagories can have further subsets and that things can belong to more than one catagory at the same time
- e.g. they would struggle to understand that elephants can belong to both the animal and the mammal catagory
Stage 3
Concrete operational stage
Stage 3: Concrete operational stage
- 7-11 years
- by the age of 7, children are able to show conservation and class inclusion but no longer show egocentrism
- they can use ‘operations’ which involve better reasoning abilities
- however, these operations only apply to visible and physical objects/ scenarios
Limitation of concrete operational stage:
Lack abstract thinking
Lack abstract thinking:
- children in this stage have difficulty understanding concepts like morality and justice
Stage 4
Formal Operational stage
Stage 4: Formal Operational stage
By the age of 11, they develop more formal reasoning abilities
- this means that children are able to focus on and comprehend abstract concepts, e.g. like morality
- they gain the ability to use hypothetico-deductive reasoning e.g. they are able to test hypotheses in order to determine a causal relationship, e.g. they can test whether water makes a towel wet by throwing a towel into a pool
A strength of Piaget’s stages theory: supporting evidence for the assertion that children in the pre-op stage cannot conserve
Piaget performed a conservation task with children in the pre-op stage. Two equally spaced rows of counters were laid out in front of the children, and they agreed that both had the same number. One of the lines was spread apart in front of the children and then the children stated that the spread out line had more counters.
SB: shows that the theory is correct in arguing that those in the pre-op stage cannot conserve as the children in the study thought the quantity of the spread apart row changed simply bc of changes in appearance. As this is in line with the theory, the theory is validated.
A weakness of Piaget’s stages theory is that researchers have claimed that his investigations supporting this theory were too complicated for 2-3 year olds to understand well. Donaldson argued that young children in the pre-op stage can conserve if asked in a way they find engaging and thus understand it better.
McGarrigle and Donaldson repeated the study and found that children agreed that the 2 rows had the same number of counters. They then used a puppet to act out a ‘Naughty teddy’ pushing one of the rows further apart. The children were able to conserve and said that both the rows still had the same number of counters. WB: it shows that Piaget underestimated the cognitive abilities of children in the pre-op stage by stating that they cannot conserve, when in reality they can as long as the task is engaging and easy to understand. As this contradicts the theory, it decreases in validity.
A strength of Piaget’s stages theory: supporting evidence for the assertion that children in the formal operational stage can use hypothetico deductive reasoning.
Piaget and Inhelder asked children to work out how to make yellow coloured liquid using different coloured liquids in beakers. They found that children in pre-op stage tried random combinations, whereas children from the formal operational stage applied logical strategies and reasoning to come to a method of making yellow coloured liquid. SB: it shows that children in later stages of cognitive development are able to infact use hypotheticodeductive reasoning, whereas younger years rely on rudimentary combinations to achieve their goal. Thus validity of theory increases.
A strength of Piaget’s stages theory is that his concept of “readiness” has practical applications in the education system
Readiness refers to the idea that children are not biologically ready to be taught certain concepts till they reach a certain age. E.g. it would be difficult to teach a 4 year old abstract maths as they have not matured enough yet. For real learning to occur, activities should be adjusted to the right level and age. If not at the right age, but taught topics beyond your ability, it leads to superficial learning but not a true understanding of said topics. Knowledge of readiness led to the development of the Plowden Report which led to major changes to English education system.
SB: shows Piaget’s stages theory is not purely theoretical and can improve lives of students by facilitating better teaching. Thus Piaget’s stages theory increases in utility.
