Piaget’s Theory Of Cognitive Development Flashcards
What is cognition?
Refers to the mental processes involved in gaining knowledge and comprehension
What are 3 cognitive processes?
Attention, thinking and judging
Piaget’s theory of cognitive development suggests…
That children’s intelligence undergoes changes as they grow.
The stages of cognitive development are invariant. What does invariant mean?
That children have to pass through every stage in order, none can be skipped or swapped.
How did Piaget say that cognitive development occur?
Through interactions between innate, universal abilities and environmental events
According to Piaget, how do children sort the knowledge that they acquire?
Through groupings known as schemas
When new information is acquired, what can happen?
Either assimilation or accommodation
What are schemas?
Mental frameworks which organise information and your understanding of the world
What is assimilation?
.
What is the 1st stage of schema development?
Assimilation (child develops a theory)
What is the 2nd stage of schema development?
Equilibrium (everything fits into theory)
What is the 3rd stage of schema development?
Disequilibrium (something happens to cast doubt on the theory)
What is the 4th stage of schema development?
Accommodation (new information is added into the schema)
What is a strength of Piaget’s theory?
Real world application: applied to education.
- children are active not passive learners
- they need to discover for themselves
- certain concepts are beyond their reach until they have the relevant schemas
Which study supports Piaget’s theory?
Howe et al (1992) - supports the idea that children are active learners
