Vygotsky's Theory of Cognitive Development Flashcards
What was the main focus of Vygotsky’s theory?
Placed emphasis on the role of other people and language in learning
Can Vygotsky’s theory be applied to other cultures?
Yes
What are 2 key ideas put forward by Vygotsky?
Zone of proximal development
Scaffolding
What is the zone of proximal development?
The gap between a child’s current level of development, and what they can potentially understand after interaction with others.
How do children cross the ZPD?
Interact with experts to become capable of understanding a situation.
Acquire more advanced reasoning abilities.
What is scaffolding?
Refers to the kind of help given by experts to guide children through the zone of proximal development
What researcher looked into scaffolding?
Wood et al.
What did Wood et al. identify?
Identified 5 aspects to scaffolding
Ways in which an adult can help a child better understand a task
What did Wood et al. suggest?
As a learner crosses the ZPD, the level of help given should decrease from level 5 to level 1
What is research support for ZPD?
4-5 year olds performed better in tasks when given prompts by an older child, compared to those in the other condition working on their own.
This supports the idea that children can develop reasoning abilities better when working with an expert.
Suggests ZPD is a valid concept
What is research support for scaffolding?
Longitudinal study investigated the effect of mothers using less and less direct intervention/prompts as children gained experience.
Demonstrates decreasing levels of help given from the expert individual
What is an application of Vygotsky’s theory?
Education
More social interaction through group work, TA’s
More effective - children can learn more content at a faster rate with appropriate scaffolding
What is a weakness of Vygotsky’s theory?
Doesn’t consider individual differences.
Some children may actually learn best on their own.
People have different personalities.
