Vygotsky's theory of cognitive development

• assumptions

  -knowledge is social.

  -knowledge is first intermental (between people MKO and LKO), and then intramental (in the mind of the person).

  -language is important.
• cultural differences

  -children gain 'mental tools' used for social, physical and work environments through/in their culture.

  -learn from more knowledgeable others who come from different culture.

  -will learn what is most important for their context first.
• zone of proximal development


  -gap between what children can learn by themselves and with an expert helper.

  -potential is limited by the stage of development.

  -will not be able to learn anything that is not in the ZPD.

  -"cross the ZPD"
• scaffolding

  -process of helping children pass the zone of proximal development and develop as much as they can in their stage.

  -use things like demonstration; prep for child; indication of materials; (specific) verbal instructions and general prompts.

  -helps children cross ZPD.

  -as children learn, the help becomes less and they become independent.
• Wood, Bruner & Ross (1976)

  5 stages of scaffolding:

  -recruitment: engage child's interest

  -reduction to degrees of freedom: focusing the child on the task & where to start

  -direction maintenance: prompting child to stay on task

  -marking critical features: highlighting most important parts

  -demonstration
• AO3

  Strength(s):

  -support for ZPD: Razzi & Bryant (1998). 4-5y/os had to estimating the number of sweets in a box. One group = no support; one group = support of older child e.g., prompts. Group with support were more successful than the group without support. Validates ZPD & theory. D: individual differences.

  -application to education: more group work & interactions, scaffold children. More TAs. Keer & Verhaeghe (2005): 7y/o tutored by 10y/o & standard classes did better than those with just standard classes. Alborz et al (2009) TAs increase learning rate (scaffolding). D: economic implications of TAs. D: Liu & Matthews (2005) - classes of 50 children in China learn effectively with lecture-style and little help. Invalidates. D: cultural bias so little generalisation of theory. Only applies to western education.

  
  

  Weakness(es):

  -only looks at nurture, not nature which could also influence cognitive development. Reductionist.