Topic 4: Cognitive development and education

Question 1

How can research into cognitive development be seen as useful

Answer 1

• Point: research into cognitive development can be useful for teachers
• Example: Bruner suggested that children of different ages need informaton presented in different ways: through physical objects for 0-1yrs, through images for 1-6yrs and through symbols for 7 years and above
• Explanation: This is useful in providing strategies to teachers when introducing difficult topics (e.g. start with use of objects enactive, before moving to pictures, icons, and then words, symbols.
• Counter-argument: However, teahers may not always be able to follow the advice (e.g. if teaching something really abstract, going back to physical objects may not be feasible)

Question 2

How can research into cognitive development be useful

Answer 2

• Point: Research into cognitive development can be useful for carers including parents
• Example: Wood suggested ways to tutor a child, including engaging their attention, reducing the number of possible outcomes and providing feedback
• Explanation: These ‘scaffolding functions’ are useful to carers for both getting children going on solving problems and helping them to succeed with them
• Counter-argument: However, parents may not always be able to follow the advice (e.g. if they are having to work such long hours that they dont have the time to help their children in this way)

Question 3

how can research into cognitive development be seen as useful

Answer 3

• Point: research into cognitive development can be useful for learners
• Example: mnemonic, there are many cognitive techniques that can be applied to aid recollection of learned material such as the method of loci, acronyms, and rhymes
• Explanation: learners may find these mnemonic devices particiularly useful if there are particular details they are finding difficult to rememeber
• Counter-argument: However, the suggestion from research may not always be useful for learners, particularly if the material they need to learn is inherently complicated or skills-related, rather than being information that just has to be learned and remembered

Question 4

How can cognitive devlopment be seen as supporting nature side

Answer 4

• Point: Research can support the claim that cognitive development is the result of nature
• Example: Piaget suggested that all children go through 4 stages of cognitive development in a sequence that does not differ between individuals (sensorimotot, pre-operational, formal operational)
• Explanation: This supports the nature side of the debate because it suggests that there are aspects of a childs cognitive development that are innate and cant be affecred by external factors
• Counter-argument: However, piagets theories were based on a small sample of children including his own, it is unclear how representative they are of children in general and in particular of children growing up in different cultures around the world

Question 5

how can cognitive development be seen as a result of nuture

Answer 5

• Point: Research can support the claim that cognitive development is the result of nature
• Example: vygotsky suggested that a more knowledgeale other is capable of helping a child reach their zone of proximal development
• Explanation: this supports the nurture side of the debate because it suggests that cognitive development can be aided by environmental influences when young
• Counter-argument: however, even nurture theories such as vygotsky seem to allow for innate limits (e.g. it is not possible to teach a child something that is beyond their current zpd)

Question 6

how can cognitive development be seen as both nature and nurture

Answer 6

• Point: Research can support the idea that cognitive development is the result of both nature and nurture
• Example: bruner suggested that children need information presented to them in different ways at different ages (enactive, iconic, symbolic) but that teachers have a role through the scaffolding they might put in place and then remove to support learning
• Explanation: This supports the nature side of the debate because it suggests that the children have inborn stages that they go through but it also supports the nurture side of the debate because it suggests that teachers can help them by the actions they take too
• Counter-argument: However, the impact that teachers are able to have may be affected by the resources available to them (including the time it takes to prepare lessons), meaning their nurturing role may not always be as skillfully executed as they would like.

Question 7

how does cognitive development be linked to determinism

Answer 7

• Point: Research into cognitive development suggests that what a child can learn is determined by internal factors
• Example: Piaget suggested that all children go through 4 stages of cognitive development in a sequence that does not vary between individuals (sensimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational)
• Explanation: This supports determinism because piaget claims that these stages dictate what children can or cannot do (e.g. they cant conserve if at the pre-operational stage)
• Counter-argument: however, piagets theories were based on a small sample of children including his own, it is unclear how representative they are of children in general and children growing up in different cultures around the world

Question 8

how does cognitive development link to determinism

Answer 8

• Point: research into cognitive development suggests that what a child can learn is determined by external factors
• Example: vygotsky suggested that a more knowledgable other is capable of helping a child rearch their zone of proximal development
• Explanation: this supports determinism because vygotsky claims that how far children progress through their zpd will be due to the input from more knowledgeable others
• Counter-argument: however, adults can be expected to vary in how effective they are as a more knowledgeable other, meaning they wont all be similar to eachother in triggering the same amount of learning taking place

Question 9

how does research into cognitive development be seen as free will

Answer 9

• Point: research into cognitive development supports free will by suggesting that learners have control over what they rememeber
• Example: mnemonics, there are many cognitive techniques that can be applied to aid recollection of learned materials such as the method of loci, acronyms and rhymes
• Explanation: this supports free will because these mneumonic strategies are things that learners can consciously make the choice to apply
• Counter-argument: however, the subject matter that a learner is trying to revise may not lend itself to being reduced to a rhyme or to being associated with objects within a familiar place and the subject matter may not be something they have made the choice to learn