Piaget's theory of cognitive development

Question 1

What did Piaget believed in?

Answer 1

Children constructed for their learning through active engagment, trying out actions and seeing what effects they had

Question 2

What was the key idea of Piaget?

Maturation

Answer 2

Piaget asserted that children did not know less than adults , they just reason differently

Maturation is the key to how children’s thinking changes - it is not just a matter of learning more

Piaget also looked over at children’s learning

• role of motivation in development
• The question of how knowledge develops

Question 3

What are the 6 builiding blocks?

Answer 3

• Schemas
• Operations
• Disequilibrium
• Equilibrium
• Assimilation
• Accomadation

Question 4

What are schemas?

Answer 4

This is a mental idea of knowledger and information. These are ‘programmes’ built for interacting with the world

Cognitive development includes the construction of increasingly detailed schema

Children are born with few schema but constructured new ones during infancy , including ‘me-schema’ - knowledge about themseleves

As adults we build schema for people, objects, physical actions and also for abstract ideas like justice or morality

Question 5

What is an example of a schema?

Answer 5

Knowing which objecys are edible

Question 6

What is disequilibrium?

Answer 6

When a child cannot make sense of their world because existing schema is insufficient - met through a lot of changes

They feel a sense of disequilibrium, which is uncomofrtable

To escape this, adapt to a new situation the child explores and learns - state of equilibrium

They cannot assimilate

Question 7

What is an example of disequilibrium?

Answer 7

When a child moves to an entirely new country

Question 8

What is equilibrium?

Answer 8

Equilibrium is a pleasant state of balance and occurs when experiences in the world match the state of our current schema

using existing schema ( assimilarion)

Question 9

What is an example of equilibrium?

Answer 9

They use an existing schema to deal with new information through assimilation

Question 10

What is assimilation?

Answer 10

This involes using existing schema to deal with new information

It takes place when the new experience does radically change our understanding of the schema so we incoporate the new experience in existing schema

Question 11

An example of assimilation

Answer 11

• When a child with dogs at home meets another dog of a different breed, child will simply add the new dog to their dog-schema (assimilation)
• When baby is given a toy car, they grasp and suck on it like they did before with rattle

Question 12

What is assimilation associated with?

Answer 12

Equilibrium

Question 13

What is accomdation?

Answer 13

An experience is that very different from our current state cannot be assimilated (cannot use existing schema)

. It involves the creation of new schema /change to existing

Question 14

An example of accomdation

Answer 14

• A child pets caats who has not come across dogs (no dog schema) on meeting a dog will incorpate the dog into cat schema
• When dog acts differently (e.g sitting when told and barking), child needs to do something dramatic than assimilation
• Child will accomdate by forming a separate dog-schema
• Both development and equilibrium take place

Question 15

What is operations?

Answer 15

Combination fo two simple actions as child matures

e,g combine two actions of grasping and shaking

Question 16

What are the four stages of cognitive development?

Answer 16

Sensorimeter period (0-2)

Pre-operational stages (2-7)

Concentrete operations (7-11)

Formal operations (11+)

Question 17

What age is the sensorimeter period?

Answer 17

0-2

Question 18

What is the characteristic of sensorimeter period?

Answer 18

A baby’s focus on physical sensations and basic coordinate between what they see and their body movements - trial and error method

They also come to understand other people as separate objects and acquire basic language

Develop object permance

Question 19

What is object permance?

Answer 19

Understanding thar objects still exist when they are out of sight

Question 20

Object permance ages

Answer 20

• Before 8 months , children immediately switch their attention away from object when its out of sight
• After 8 months the children will continue to look for it. Suggest that children then understand that object continue to exist when removed from view

Question 21

What is concentret operations?

Answer 21

Children have masrerred conversation (tested by pouring water from wider glass to tall one)

They perform better on tasks involving egocentrism and class inclusion

However, still have some reasoning prboelsm - only able to reason or operate on physical objects in their presence (concentrete operations)

Only had operations in using existing schema on physical objects

They struggle to imagine objects

Question 22

What is pre-operational stages?

Answer 22

The baby is active in its movement and apply basic language skills - around 2 years old

However, they lack reasoning abilities so display more errors in this area

Question 23

What is egocentrism?

Answer 23

Tested using three mountains (Piaget and Inhelder 1956)

Children were shown three model mountains each with a different feature

Pre-opertionalised children tended to find it difficult to picture that showed a view other than their own

This is the skill in which seeing the world from another perspective

Question 24

When does pre-opertionalised stage develop?

Answer 24

2-7 years

Question 25

What do pre-opertionalised children also lack?

Answer 25

Convservation

Basic mathematical understanding that the quantity will stay the same even when appearence stays the same

Egocentrism

Class inclusion - underatand classify objects into different types of categories

Question 26

What is a skill they do develop during pre-opertionalised stage?

Answer 26

Animisim

Belief that objects are inmate and have feelings

Question 27

How is class inclusion tested?

Answer 27

Uisng picture of five dogs and two cats asking’Are there more dogs or animals?’

Children under 8 years old (pre-opertionalised) say they are more dogs (Piaget and Inhelder 1964)

They cannot simultaneously see dog as a member of dog class and animal class

Question 28

When does concentrete operations develop?

Answer 28

7-11

Question 29

What is formal operations?

Answer 29

Developed a good abstract reasoning

Being able to think beyond the here and now

Focus on formed arguement and not distracted by content

e.g process syllogisms ‘ All yellow cats have two heads’. I have a yellow cat called Charlie. How many heads does the cat have?

Answer - two

Younger children are distracted by the fact that cats have more than two heads

Question 30

What is the age when formal operations develop?

Answer 30

11+

Question 31

A limitation of Piaget’s theory

Class inclusion ability was questioned

Answer 31

• Sieger and Sventia found out that 5 -year old recieved feedback that pointed out subsets they did develop an understanding of class inclusion
• This was contray to Piagrt belief that class inclusion was not possible until a child has reached a necessary intellutcal development of 7 years old
• This again questions the validity of Piaget’s stages

Question 32

A limitation

Underestimate the role of people

Answer 32

• Piaget recongised teacher are important for setting up discovery situations for children but for other theories suggest that the role of others in learning is more central
• e.g Vygotsky argued that learning is more of a social process and more advanced learning is possible by the help of others
• Suggest that Piaget’s theory is somehow limited to the explanation of cognitive development process

Question 33

A second limtiation

Full role of language is not acknowledged

Answer 33

• To Piaget’s language is just a cognitive ability that develops in line with other abilites
• Other researchers such as Vygotsky have placed a lot more importance on language development suggesting it is more crucail for broader cognitive development
• If language is central to learning and it is not fully examined in the theory, theory lacks validity

Question 34

A strength of Piaget

revolutionised teaching

Answer 34

• Activity - orientated clasrooms allow children to learn in a more natural way. The children engage in tasks allowing them to construct their understanding of cirriculmun
• E.g early year’s classrooms is focused on play and discovering new aspects of the world
• Strength as it has a positive impact on education and continue to seek out active ways of learning

Question 35

Grace’s family has a pet budgerigar named Yorkie.

Grace likes to sit next to his cage and watch him flap his wings and crack seeds pods with beak.

Grace knows that Yorkie is a bird as he has wings, a beak and feathers.

She can now identify other birds who come in her garden and use the bird feeder as they can share similar features and behaviours to Yorkie

She calls out ‘birdie’ whenever she spots one in a garden

One day Grace’s grandparents took her at the zoo.

She is fascinated by the penguins but doesn’t call out birdie when seeing them

Granddad explained that they are birds as they have feathers and a farm of wings but they are suited to the water,

Next time they visit the zoo, Gracie shouts ‘birdie’ when seeing penguins

Answer 35

Gracie has used a schema to develop the knowledge Yorkie is a bird and justifying it with wings and a beak

She now use assimilation with a schema when she calls out ‘birdie’ because they have similar features and use existing schema

When she goes to zoo, she doesn’t call out birdie as information of a penguin doesn’t have the ‘wings’ that are in the existing schema - causes disequilibrium as they can’t fly

She uses accomdation as changes understanding of schema in grandfather’s explanation (for next time)

Question 36

Beaker experiment

Piaget and Inhelder

Answer 36

• Piaget’s theory is supproted by findings
• This involved children showing two equal amounts of substance and assumed if they were the same
• Then transformed their appearnece by pouring one into a tall glass
• Provides support for his theory as pre-operationalised children would claim that the tall beaker had more ‘juice’. This shows that conversation hasn’t developed yet

Question 37

Objects moving down a slope experiment

Answer 37

• Howe e tal (1992) put 9-12 year olds in a group to discuss how objects move down a slope
• They found that the level of children’s knowledge and understanding increased after discussion
• Crucially, children did not reach the same conclusion or factual knowledge.
• This supports the Piaget’s idea of learning through forming mental representations

Question 38

Key experiment

Piaget and Inhelder

Cardboard shapes - Cardboard shapes

Answer 38

• This experiment found children given three cardboard shapes
• Asked which shape the doll would see and pick out of 10 pictures
• They show that children under seven years wasn’t able to see from the doll’s viewpoint
• They made up showing their own view point of the doll
• Concluding young children are egocentric

Question 39

Outline and evaulate Piaget’s research into object permance

AO1

Answer 39

• Piaget uses the term object permance in building blocks - define
• This exists around the ages of 8-9 months
• His aim was to investigate at what age children develop object permance
• Demonstrated in toy and cloth study by hidding toy in front of child
• Findings - found that infants searched about hidden toy around 8 months old
• Conclusion - Children around 8 months formed mental representation about the object

Question 40

Outline and evaulate Piaget’s research into object permance

A03

Answer 40

1. His theory was based on the ideas how his own children developed. This is shown from a Western perspective and has a different traditiional view. They have no multicultral evidence. Piaget should use produce and collect multicultral data
2. Piaget has each ability forming at a certain age. He has not considered the enivnromental side of how each skill has developed. Therfore, it questions its findings and validity. Therefore, Piaget should take an interactionist side

Question 41

What to include in essay of

‘Discuss Piaget’s theory of cognitive development’

Answer 41

• Only name schema, building blocks , operations , assimilation , accomdation, equilibrium, disequilibrium
• Cogntiive development stages - name of stage, age , description