Vygotsky Flashcards
Explain Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of development
Infants are born with elementary functions and through interactions with other people, the environment and langauge they become higher mental functions.
What 4 elementary functions are infants born with?
- Attention
- Sensation
- Perception
- Memory
Explain Morelli et al’s study
Efe (Democratic republic of congo) and San Pedro (Guatamala) children imitated adult work in their play more so than the American children.
Explain Cole et al’s study
The Kpelle people of Liberia are not as good as US ppts at estimating length but are better at estimating quantities of rice
Explain Luria’s study
Shown 4 pictures and asked to pick the 3 that went together.
Farmers with formal schooling selected 3 tool that go together forming an abstract category.
Unschooled farmers selected 3 items based on the practical situations where the objects could be used.
Explain Chen, Mo & Honomichl’s study
Chinese and US students tested on 2 problem solving questions.
US students performed better in problem where solution was analogous to hansel and gretel fairytale.
Chinese students performed better in problem where solution was analogous to elephant tale.
Explain Gordon’s study
In 2 Amazonian cultures there are no number words for quantities larger than 5, so individuals from these cultures can only solve maths problems working with numbers less than 5.
They can learn if introduced to a new language with numbers above 5.
Explain Zuber et al’s study
In the german language the units are said first and then the decade so children often have problems learning to convert spoken numbers into writing.
What is self speech?
Transition from language as a tool for communicating to a tool for thought.
Monologues become internalised at age 7 to become inner speech (thought).
What is the zone of proximal development?
The increase in development that a child can reach through assistance by a more competent other compared to development without this help.
What is scaffolding?
Children’s learning is enhanced when more competent people provide a framework that supports the children’s thinking at a higher level than they could manage by themselves. This is adjusted as the child becomes more capable
What did Wood et al propose are 5 aspects of Scaffolding
- Recruitment
- Reduction of degrees of freedom
- Direction maintenance
- Marking critical features
- Demonstration
Describe the findings of Freund’s study
3-5 year olds performed better in a task arranging furnishings in a doll house when they had worked on a similar task with the support of their mother through guided learning compared to alone with corrective feedback from an experimenter.
Why does collaborative learning lead to greater learning?
Children make attribution errors and think they have made the decisions which have been assisted by the adult
What is a similarity between Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories
They are both constructivist theories
See children as active learners who learn through interaction with their environment
