piaget's theory of cognitive development Flashcards
over what years did piaget write to create this theory?
1930’s to 1970’s
what is a schema?
A mental map used to interpret and understand the world. It contains all the information we have about one aspect of knowledge, and the process of obtaining that knowledge.
as adults, what do we have schemas for?
people including ourselves, objects, physical actions and for more abstract ideas (such as justice and morality)
are babies born with any schemas?
yes, according to piaget they are born with a few schema’s, enough to allow them to interact with others. Infants start to develop new schemas, one being the ‘me-schema’ which is all the infants knowledge about themselves.
what is accomodation?
Accomodation takes place when we are exposed to new information which radically changes our existing knowledge. So, to accomodate it we form a new schema.
Give an example of accomodation
When a child has a pet dog, they may think cats are dogs because they have fur, four legs and a tail like dogs do. But when seeing a cat, they accomodate the existence of a seperate species by creating a ‘cat’ schema.
what is Assimilation?
Assimilation occurs when we are exposed to new information that we understand, and we can equilibrate it by adding new information to our existing schemas.
what’s an example of assimilation?
A child in a family with dogs as pets can adapt to the existence of difference dog breeds by assimilating them into their dog schema.
what is disequilibrium?
This is the state when we encounter an unfamiliar situation, and assimilation is not enough to understand it.
What gives us the motivation to learn?
When our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new. This leads to disequilibrium
What is equilibration?
When we adapt to the new situation that resulted in disequilibrium, by exploring and learning what we need to know. We then achieve equilibration and enter a state of equilibrium.
which is the desired mental state?
equilibrium, which occurs when our new and existing schemas are complete
Give one strength of piaget’s theory of cognitive development…
There is research supporting the idea that children form individual mental representations through discovery. HOWE ET AL (1992) put 9-12 year old children in groups of 4 to study and test movements of objects down a slope. Their knowledge was tested before nad after beinge allowed to discuss their observations. It was found that each child reported different details and had a different understanding of the motion. This supports Piaget’s idea that children learn through their own individual mental representations
Give another strength of Piaget’s theory…
It promoted changes in methods and attitudes within education and the classroom. Piaget had the idea that children learn through an active process where they explore their environment and form their own mental representation. This meant that activity based classrooms replaced sitting and copying from the board, allowing children to tak epart in tasks to allow them to create their own understandings of the curriculum.
Give a weakness of Piaget’s theory…
LACK OF ECOLOGICAL VALIDITY -Unrepresentative sample - he used children from the nursey attached to the university, so the children were predominantly white and from middle-class well educated families. This means that the findings from these children cannot be generalised to other children with other backgrounds as we do not know how their cognitive development varies. Not all children feel the same need to reach equilibrium and completely understand new situations so results cannot be fully generalised to all children.
