piaget intellectual development

• piagets stages of intellectual development

  • identified 4 stages of intellectual development
  • each stage is characterised by a different level of reasoning ability
  • although exact ages vary from child to child , all children develop through the same series of stages
• what are the 4 stages of intellectual development and ages ?

  • sensorimotor stage (approx 0-2 years)
  • pre - operational stage ( approx 2-7 years )
  • concrete operations (approx 7-11 years)
  • formal operations (11 plus years )
• What happens in the sensorimotor stage ?

  • Baby early focus = physical sensations and developing basic co-ordination
  • Children learn by trial and error that they can move their bodies deliberately and they can move other objects too
  • Baby learns that other people are seperate objects and acquire basic language
• Whats object permanence that happens at 8 months in the sensorimotor stage?

  • A baby is capable of understanding that objects still exist when out of sight
  • Before this time,Piaget observed that babies would immediately switch attention away from an object once it has been moved out of their line of sight.From 8 months onwards, they would continue to look for it.
• What happens in the pre operational stage ?

  By 2 years a toddler is mobile and can use lanaguage but still lack reasoning ability
• What is the three factors that happens in the pre-operational stage ?

  • conservation
  • Egocentrism
  • Class inclusion
• What does conservation mean?

  Ability to realise that quantity remains the same even when the appearance of an object or groups of objects change e.g volume of liquid when poured between vessels of different shapes
• What’s egocentrism?

  • Only seeing the world from your own point of view
  • Applies to both phsyical objects (three mountains task) and arguments in which a child can only appreciate their own perspective
• What does class inclusion stage mean ?

  • Advanced classification skill in which we recognise that classes of objects have subsets and are themselves subsets of larger classes
  • Pre operational children usually struggle to place things in more than one class
• What happens in concrete operations ?

  • From age 7 most children can understand conservation and perform much better on tasks of egocentrism and class inclusion
  • although children now have better reasoning abilities (operations) these are strictly concrete operations i.e. they can be applied only to physical objects in the child’s presence
  • They still struggle to reason about abstract ideas/imagine objects or situations that they cannot see
• • What’s formal reasoning?they are able to focus on the form of an argument and not be distracted by the content
  • Once children can reason formally, they are capable of scientific reasoning and are able to appreciate abstract ideas
• How can piaget be applied to real life in education ?

  Piaget's stages show how children don't understand conservation until age 7.So there’s no point in teaching conservation tasks until 7 as they won't understand.Therefore,improve outcomes in school as no point teaching thing they can't grasp
• How is piaget’s methodology flawed ?

  moving counters himself, all failed conservation task

  E - McGarrigle & Donaldson: teddy moved counters instead of researcher. 62% of 4-6 year olds said correct answer

  L - lacks reliability as replication got different results
• why is piaget underestimating ability of Preoperational children in terms of egocentrism a limitation?

  • three mountains task investigated egocentrism
  • Hughes: police dolls, 90% of 3-4 year olds hid doll where police dolls couldn't see it
  • maybe preoperational stage should be 2-3 as not egocentric from 3 yrs