piaget's theory of cognitive devevelopment Flashcards
what did Piaget realise about children
Piaget realised that children do not simply know less than adults
Instead, children work in entirely different ways than adults do
Based on this understanding, Piaget divided childhood into stages, each of which represents the development of new ways of reasoning
what are the two aspects of children learning
- the role of motivation in the development
- the question of how knowledge develops
why are schemas important for a child’s development
the world is represented in the mind - where knowledge is stored
As children develop they construct more and more detailed and complex mental representations of the world
These representations ate stores in the form of schemas
what are schemas
a schema is a mental structure containing all the information we have about one aspect of the world
what are adult schemas
adult schema are for people, physical actions and also for more ABSTRACT ideas like justice and morality
what are children’s schema’s according to Piaget
according to Piaget, children are born with a small number of schema just enough to allow them to interact with other people
what is the schema like in infancy
Infants construct new schemas.
One of these is the “me - schema” in which all the child’s knowledge about themself is stored
why is motivation important in development
the key element of Piaget’s theory is the motivation to learn
According to Piaget, we are motivated to learn when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new - this leads to an unpleasant sensation of disequilibrium
how do we escape the feeling of disequilibrium
to escape disequilibrium, we have to adapt to the new situation by exploring and learning what we need to know
By doing this, we achieve equilibrium- the preferred mental state
how does learning take place
via assimilation and accommodation
How did Piaget view learning
Piaget saw learning as adapting to the new situation so that we understand it
he identified two processes that this occurs:
- assimilation
- accomodation
what is assimilation
it takes place when we understand a new experience and equilibrate by adding new info to our existing schemas
e.g. a child in a family with dogs can adapt to the existence of different dog breeds by assimilating them into the dog schema
what is accommodation
this process takes place in response to dramatically new experiences
the child has to adjust to these by either radically changing the current schema or forming new ones
e.g. So a child with a pet dog may at first think of cats as dogs (Because they have four legs, fur, and a tail) but then accommodate to the existence of a separate species called cats
This will involve altering the animal/pet schemas to include cats and forming a new “cat schema”
