SA - Piaget Stages Flashcards
What is cognitive development?
How children learn to think, reason, understand, organise and remember
Who was Piaget?
Very important cognitive psychologist who began work in the 1920s. Work not really discovered by the rest of the world until the 1960s.
Three influences on development
maturation
Activity - the cognitive processing expediated by children moving
Social transmission - learning concepts and procedures from others
How do children respond to the three influences on development
By organisation (schemes/schemas)
What are schemes or schemas
Building blocks of thinking. How we organise what we know.
Adaptation
The process of creating a good fit between what we know (schemes) and what we’ve just encountered
The process of creating a good fit between what we know (schemes) and what we’ve just encountered
Adaptation
Assimilation
Fits new item into existing schema
E.g Scheme is a bird based on a budgerigar. Child sees a sparrow which looks similar but brown. Says bird is a brown budgerigar.
Child sees a sparrow which looks similar but brown. Says bird is a brown budgerigar. What is this called?
Assimilation
Accommodation
Creates new schema for new information
Child knows a bird called a budgerigar. Sees a sparrow. Through experience realises it is not a brown budgerigar but a sparrow. A separate species of bird all together. Child changes schema.
Child knows a bird called a budgerigar. Sees a sparrow. Through experience realises it is not a brown budgerigar but a sparrow. A separate species of bird all together. A sparrow. What is this called?
Accommodation
What is equilibration
Balance of organising, assimilating and accommodating
Balance of organising, assimilating and accommodating
Equilibration
Disequilibration
Applies scheme to existing situation but it does not work
Applies scheme to existing situation but it does not work
Disequilibration
Paiget’s Constructivism
Through disequilibration new schema is constructed. This knowledge is constructed through exploration, discovery, experimentation, reflecting
What are the 4 major stages in Piaget’s stage theory of cognitive development
- Sensorimotor
- Preoperational
- Concrete Operational
- Formal Operational
What ages are covered by the four stages?
Sensorimotor - birth to 2
Preoperational - 2 to 7
Concrete operational - 7 to 11
Formal operational - 11 to 15 ?
What is Piaget’s theory called?
Stage Theory of Cognitive Development
Generally describe aspects of Piaget’s view of stages (4)
- Children proceed through the stages sequentially. They must go through the stages. Invariant.
- Doesn’t matter how long it takes you to go through the stages, but you must go through them
- People can arrive at some stages earlier or later than others but you must go through them
- Each stage characterised by different abilities they can achieve
What is important to note about schemes
Schemes are in a continuous state of flux. Change constantly
Name three milestones of the Sensorimotor stage
Object permanence
Goal-directed action
Deferred Imitation - repeating an action based on a previous occasion
Name two milestones of the Preoperational stage
Semiotic function
Reversible thinking
Name three milestones of the Concrete Operational stage
Conservation
Classification
Seriation
What is object permanence? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
Beginning to understand that an object can be out of view, but that does not mean it is gone. Mum leaves the room does not mean she is not coming back. Peek-a-boo.
Sensorimotor
What is Goal directed action? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
Learning to move/do something with a goal. Grab this toy and it will make a sound, emptying and replacing, stack blocks and knock them down
Sensorimotor
What is imitation? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
Imitation is pretend play. E.g. I’m a dog, wagging tail
Sensorimotor
What is Semiotic function? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
Working with symbols. Start of learning letters and sounds. Start of reading E.g. t = tee sound
Preoperational
What is Reversible thinking? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
1 + 2 = 3 is the same as 3-2 = 1 is the same as 2 + 1 = 3 or 3 = 2 + 1
Name two barriers to prelogical thinking?
Conservation
Centration
What is conservation?
That something can be moved or rearranged and stay the same
E.g. 1 short glass with 500ml of water. 500ml poured into a tall, thing glass. Don’t understand they contain the same amount of water.
Also, 5 circles drawn tightly together and 5 circles drawn spaced apart. Thinks there are more circles in the ones drawn apart.
A child thinks the first line is longer. What is this an example of.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_Centration
What is another key feature of the preoperational stage?
Egocentrism
Give two examples of egocentrism
Throwing a tantrum in the supermarket when they don’t get something
Making up own rules in a game
What is egocentrism?
Not caring about the thoughts or feelings of people around you
What is Conservation? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
Can understand things can be moved and rearranged and stay the same. eg. Pour 500ml from a short wide glass into a tall thin glass., Understands even though the water is higher in the thin glass, the amount of water is the same.
Concrete operational
What is Classification? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
Given four items such as a sheet of paper, pen, envelope, apple. Understands the paper, pen and envelope go together (stationery) and the apple is different.
Concrete operational
What is Seriation? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
Seeing the order of things. That is, 7 is bigger than 4 but smaller than 10.
What is another key feature of the concrete operational stage?
They can conduct some level of scientific enquirer but haven’t really grasped abstract thought and reasoning. The ‘if…then’ process of thinking
Are there any more stages?
Thought to be another stage. Post-formal stage. It doesn’t end at 15 and some never get to the formal stage.
What is hypothetico-deductive reasoning? Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
Able to reason. If…then.
More credit cards = more money spent, can make analogies such as cat is to purr as dog is to bark, can manage pronumerals such as a=5 and b = 2, can solve a pendulum problem (only the string length makes it faster or slower)
Formal Operational
What is adolescent egocentrism? (4) Give example. What stage would you expect to find it in?
The imaginary audience (Elkind, 1981)
Recognise other people’s perceptions and values, but they are more focused on their own
Idealism starts to develop - Thinking about global issues, interest in causes, peaks in late teens
Peer group importance
Attention seeking behaviour- particularly males, risk-taking behaviour, mostly in front of a peer group
Name two milestones of the formal operational stage?
Hypothetico-deductive reasoning
Adolescent egocentrism
What are two key educational implications for Piaget’s theory
- Observation to match student level - level of difficulty just enough to stimulate mental activity, disequilibration occurs with new ways of thinking. Too hard wont work, too easy switch off
- Activity and constructing knowledge - interaction and the value of play
Name three types of play with examples
- Practice - kick a ball, slow a ball, pass
- Symbolic - board games, hopscotch, snakes and ladders
- Structural games - chess, tennis, rugby league
7 criticisms of Piaget’s theory
- Stage theory (over and under estimations) - you can cross stages, but not be in either stage
- Underestimation of child (understanding in some areas but not in others) - underestimated what babies can do, overestimated in some cases as well
- Can accelerate stages (to an extent) - child prodigy can accelarate through stages v. Quickly
- Not everyone reaches formal operational stage - Epstein & Kamii
- There’s a post formal operational stage 15 + (extra stage)
- Impact of culture and social grouping - children from different cultures go through stages at different times
- Role of social interaction - there but not dominant
What is the key take home message when considering Piagets theories
Be careful to concentrate on stages not ages
Motor activities associated with sensorimotor stage
Hearing, touching, smelling, seeing, tasting
Sensorimotor in education
Imitation, social interaction and play
