Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development

Question 1

What was Vygotsky’s theory of CD focused on?

Answer 1

• Vygotsky’s socio-cultural theory of cognitive development focused on understanding how social interactions, cultural tools, and historical context shape the development of higher mental functions in children.

Question 2

Vygotsky’s broad assumptions

Answer 2

• He saw the child as a apprentice.
• He emphasised the role of other, more knowledgeable people in children’s development.
• He believed that children acquire the mechanisms of thinking and learning as a result of the social interactions between themselves and the adults around them.

Question 3

Cultural tools

Answer 3

• Vygotsky believed that cultural attitudes and beliefs are developed and passed from one generation to another.
  -This means that each child ‘inherits’ a number of cultural tools including values, technological tools and psychological tools.
• For Vygotsky the most essential cultural tool is language.

Question 4

Language (more detail)

Answer 4

• Language enables the shift from basic mental functions to higher mental functions.
• From external monologue (social speech in infants aged 0-3 years) to egocentric speech in 3-7 year olds, inner speech in 7+ and then finally, internalised thought.

Question 5

What is the zone of proximal development?

Answer 5

• Vygotsky referred to the Zone of Proximal Development as the gap between what a child can do without help and what they can achieve with guidance and support from a MKO.

Question 6

What occurs within the Zone of proximal development?

Answer 6

• Vygotsky believed that learning and development occurs within this zone, where children are challenged, but not overwhelmed.
• When a child is given the right level of support to cross the ZPD, they are able to reach their learning potential.

Question 7

What is scaffolding?

Answer 7

• Vygotsky suggested that scaffolding should be used to help a child to cross their ZPD.
• This tactic involves support from a MKO to enable the learner to complete tasks they couldn’t do alone.
• The adult does not simplify the overall task, but the role of the learner is simplified so that they can focus on single elements of a task.

Question 8

What does scaffolding include?

Answer 8

• Demonstrations.
• Prompts.
• Hints.
• Direct instruction.

Question 9

What is an important aspect of scaffolding?

Answer 9

• An important aspect of scaffolding is that there is a gradual withdrawal of support as the child’s knowledge and confidence increase.

Question 10

Research into Vygotsky’s theory (Wood and Middleton)

Answer 10

• Observed the strategies used by mothers to help their child complete a complex task.

Question 11

Wood and Middleton: Procedure?

Answer 11

• 4 yo children worked on a difficult 3D building task with the assistance of their mothers (the task was too difficult for the child to complete alone).
• They observed how mothers interacted with their children to build the 3D model.
  The type of support included:
• General encouragement (e.g. ‘now you have a go’.)
• Specific instructions (e.g. ‘get four big blocks’).
• Direct demonstration (e.g. showing the child how to place one block on another).

Question 12

Wood and Middleton: findings?

Answer 12

• No single strategy was best for helping the child to progress.
  Mothers whose assistance was most effective were those who varied their strategy according to how the child was doing:
• When the child was doing well, they became less specific with their help.
• When the child started to struggle, they gave increasingly specific instructions until the child started to make progress again.

Question 13

Wood and Middleton: Conclusions…

Answer 13

• These findings support Vygotsky’s ideas that children’s learning and development are accelerated with the support of MKO and that a range of scaffolding techniques effectively raise the child’s level of competence, suggesting that these help them to cross their ZPD.

Question 14

Gredler research

Answer 14

• Explored indigenous communities in Papua New Guinea and found that they use a primitive counting system.

Question 15

What is their counting system (Gredler)

Answer 15

• Counting is done by starting on the thumb of one hand and going up the arm and down to the other fingers, ending in 37.
• This system makes it very difficult to add and subtract large numbers, a limiting factor for cognitive development in this culture.

Question 16

What is Gredler’s research an example of?

Answer 16

• This is an example of how culture can impact cognitive development, supporting Vygotsky’s assumption that cultural tools shape the development of cognitive abilities.

Question 17

Evaluation of Vygotsky’s theory= research support

Answer 17

• There are many lab based studies that support Vygotsky’s assumptions (e.g. Wood and Middleton) that have high levels of control over the types of support offered by expert others and the impact this has on a child’s progress.
• These have allowed for causal conclusions to be drawn about the importance of social interaction and cultural tools and provide valid support for Vygotsky’s theory.

Question 18

Evaluation of Vygotsky’s theory= application to education

Answer 18

• The application of Vygotsky’s ideas in education provides further support for this theory; scaffolding is used in both primary and secondary education, with collaborative learning approaches such as peer tutoring and group tasks used regularly.
• These strategies are based on Vygotsky’s ZPD.

Question 19

Evidence: application of Vygotsky’s theory to schools.

Answer 19

• Research has shown that 7 year olds tutored by 10 year olds in addition to their whole-class teaching, progressed further in reading than controls who were not peer tutored.
• Alborz found that teaching assistants are very effective at improving the rate of learning in children.
• These studies demonstrate value of Vygotsky’s ideas in real-world settings.

Question 20

Evaluation of Vygotsky’s theory= issues and debates

Answer 20

• Critics have argued that Vygotsky may have overemphasised the role of social interaction in learning and more attention should be paid to innate abilities and the influence of individual differences.

Question 21

Research into cultural differences in learning (issues and debates eval)

Answer 21

• Lui and Matthews found that in China classes of up to 50 children learn very effectively in lecture-stye classrooms with very few individual interactions with peers or tutors, this would not be possible if Vygotsky’s theory was entirely correct.
• There is also evidence to suggest that children across cultures follow similar language development patterns, this supports the idea that language may have a biological basis, further challenging Vygotsky’s theory.