Piaget's theory of cognitive Development

Question 1

Who is Piaget ?

Answer 1

A Swiss psychologist whilst standardising IQ tests at the Alfred Binet laboratory in Paris, he became interested in way children learn. Although children gave wrong answers to IQ tests when Piaget asked them to explain their answers, they often used imagination when they didn’t possess the necessary knowledge. He found children’s thought changed as they grow older. He observed his own children and their friends looking at how they played and learn which was used as basis for his theory

Question 2

Key features of Piaget’s theory

Answer 2

• the stages are invariant - don’t change and children pass them in the same order
• Stages are universal - same for all children
• Piaget viewed children as “little scientist “ - actively try to understand environment
• Schemas - Piaget believed children had mental pictures of their worlds which helps them to react to world around them - ( schema of feeding themselves )
• Assimilation = where new information the child encounters is merged into existing schema Example : All cats are black and see a cat that’s brown then new schema = some cats are black and some are brown
• Accommodation = where new information the child encounters results in new schema being formed or existing schema altered some way Example: a child may think all vehicles have 4 wheels are cars and then the child sees a van you can live in then the schema that all vehicles have 4 wheels are cars needs to be altered.

Question 3

Sensori - motor stage 0-2

Answer 3

babies learn about world through senses ( state 5 senses ) by moving around their environment and doing things (Motor )

• end of stage, object permanence ( explain what this means ) then if a toy is hidden from them, they will actively look for it

Question 4

Pre operational stage 2-7

Answer 4

Children start school and new skills
- Animism - belief inanimate objects have thoughts and feelings - treat them as if alive
- Ecocentrism = Only sees world from their point of view - lack empathy and cannot understand that other people like parents have different thinking, feeling to them.
- reversibility - not developed - unable to think of things in reverse order or Elasticity/ compression ( include examples )

Question 5

What experiment did Piaget use as evidence for ecocentrism

Answer 5

three mountain problem. In this task, children shown model of 3 mountains and seated on one side of the model and a doll placed on the other side of the model. The child were asked to choose the card which showed the doll’s view of the model. Most children in pre-operation picked there view of the mountain.

Question 6

Concrete operational 7-11

Answer 6

Conservation - see substance such as clay or strong change shape = mass, volume, length not change. ( then talk about example of different glasses and water , children who can converse will know volume not changed ) Some children will not able to ‘conserve’ as tall glass looks like there’s more so Piaget tested his theory with ‘conservation’ experiments.

Decentration - ability to focus on more than one aspect of situation = important for learning to read. Children who are not decentred will look at individual letters and understand them but not put them in order. Decentred = can read

Seriation = rank order

Linguistic humour = use language to create joke

Question 7

Formal operational stage 11+

Answer 7

• abstract thinking/ idea = Hypothetical thinking ( imagine how it was like for children living in poverty in VE even if they never experienced poverty themselves )
• think logically
• compare/contrast different theories or sides of debate
• mentally manipulate ideas ( tell teachers that coin goes from smallest to largest without actually seeing the coins

Question 8

Reductionism VS holism

Answer 8

Reductionism = view human behaviour from a simple perspective although human behaviour is complex and many factors can contribute to how we think and behave

Holism = ‘ whole of greater than sum of parts ‘ Views individuals and product of many different factors interacting. Assumes everyone is unique.

Question 9

Criticisms of Piaget

Answer 9

1) Undermining age children reach different parts of stage . Psychologists argue children may have object permanence but lack skill/ motivation to find missing toy

2) half of adults reach formal operational stage with many not able to abstract think. Piaget fails to understand this so theory not universal

3) Piaget describes different stages but not how these stages occur and what changes the child’s thinking. No idea of why or what prompts change

4) some of his research to complicated for children to understand . For example when children given simplified version of 3 mountain model they are able to see things from Doll’s perspective = not egocentric

5) Reductionist as it doesn’t take into account role of teachers in children’s learning. Views children as little scientists and independent w/o need of support. Vygotsky said learning is key aspect of development . If teachers scaffold learning = effective