Piaget's stages of intellectual development evaluation Flashcards
Object permanence may occur at a much younger age than Piaget theorised
POINT: Object permanence may occur at a much younger age than Piaget theorised
EVIDENCE: Bower and Wishart (1972) found that infants 1 to 4 months continued to reach for an object for up to 90 seconds after the lights were turned out
EXPLANATION: The baby may have been distracted by the cloth in Piaget’s original study, meaning that they did not continue to search from the object when it went out of sight.
IMPACT: The reduces the validity of Piaget’s work
Piaget underestimated the ability of children in the pre-operational stage
POINT: Piaget underestimated the ability of children in the pre-operational stage
EVIDENCE: McGarrigle and Donaldson (1974) found that children aged 4 to 6 could conserve if they were not put off by the way they were questioned.
If the counters were moved accidentally by a “naughty teddy” then 72% of children under 7 correctly said the number was the same as before
EXPLANATION: The reason that the children performed poorly in Piaget’s study was that hearing two questions from the researcher prompted them to change their original answer
IMPACT: Piaget’s tests of conservation, therefore, lacked validity
There is evidence to suggest class inclusion can occur before 7 years old
POINT: There is evidence to suggest class inclusion can occur before 7 years old
EVIDENCE: Sielglar and Sventina (2006) found that children of 5 could successfully complete a similar type of task to what was done in Piaget’s original study they were given an accurate explanation of class inclusion at the start of the experiment
EXPLANATION: The difficulty of Piaget's task meant the children could not show that they understood class inclusion. They can show this ability on tasks that are easier to understand
There is evidence to suggest egocentrism can occur before 7 year
POINT: There is evidence to suggest egocentrism can occur before 7 year
EVIDENCE: Hughes (1975) showed children a model with four walls in a cross layout. The model contained three dolls - a boy and two policemen.
Once familiarised with the task children as young as 3 1/2 years old were able to position the boy where one police officer could not “see” him 90% of the time, and four-year-olds could do this 90% of the time when there were two police officers to hide from
EXPLANATION: This contradicts Piaget’s claims that children could not understand another person’s viewpoint at this age
Piaget over - estimated the abilities of adolescents
POINT: Piaget overestimated the abilities of adolescents
EVIDENCE: Bradmetz (1999) showed out of 62 children tested at age 15, only one could reliably show formal reasoning whereas Piaget said this developed at age 11
EXPLAINATION: It is clear now that children at 11 years old can not think in an adult way
