Piaget cognitive development

• Piagets theory of cog dev- Howe et al (eval point)


  • Piaget believed children learn by forming their own representations of the world (child as the scientist)
  • Children 9-12, groups of 4
  • Discussed the movement of an object down a slope
  • Understanding assessed pre/post discussion
  • After working together and discussing, children had an increased level of knowledge/understanding
  • However, critically, children had not come to the same conclusions or facts. Supports Piaget's idea
• What did Piaget suggest that motivates us to learn?

  Disequilibrium and achieving equilibration
• What is disequilibrium?

  • The unpleasant sensation when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new
• What is equilibration?

  • The adaptation as a result to escape disequilibrium
  • Exploring and learning what we need to know to create a new schema or adding new info to an existing one (accommodation~ or assimilation)
  • This is the preferred mental state
• What is assimilation

  • Where we add new information into an existing schema
  • We understand information and equilibrate it
• What is accommodation?

  • In response to dramatically new experiences
  • Radically changing current schemas or forming new ones
  • E.g. child thinking cats and dogs are in the same schema due to being furry and 4 legged, new schema to accomodate cats and dogs as animals
• What are schemas?

  • Packages/units of knowledge on aspects we have of the world
  • Our understanding of an object, idea or framework of beliefs
  • Developed from experience
• LIMITATION- ROLE OF OTHERS (AO3)

  • Piaget may largely have underplayed the roles of others within learning
  • Piaget believed that children learned by acting as their own scientist, development occuring within the individuals mind
  • However, a vygotskyian approach may be more explanatory over how children develop and learn
  • More social approach in which adults or more knowledgeable others are also central and help children to become more advanced
  • Supported by uses of scaffolding
• LIMITATION- OVERPLAYED IMPORTANCE OF EQUILIBIRATION

  • Piaget over-estimated how motivated children are to learn means that his theory may lack validity
  • Only tested educated children from a middle-class European background
  • may be more highly motivated than children from less educated backgrounds/different cultures
  • Therefore the way this group of children acquired knowledge may be different
  • Abstract and formal operational thinking may be much less common in other social and cultural groups
  • may feel differently towards education and may be less/have different motivations and place value on abilities that may be useful rather than developing formal operational thinking and being able to solve abstract problems.
  • Therefore lacks generalisability across cultures, imposed etic
• STRENGTH- APPS IN EDUCATION (AO3)

  • Piaget has established the independent role of us in education in where we learn via discovery and trial and failure
  • As a result, classrooms have been revolutionised to cater to more active rather than passive forms of learning since the 1960s
  • E.g implications of flipped learning where students read material independently before lessons and practise exam questions to apply knowledge
• STRENGTH- Howe (AO3)

  • Piaget believe children learn by forming their own mental representations of the world
  • Children who have had similar learning experiences will form individual mental representations
  • Howe et al found between 9-12 year olds in groups of 4
  • Discussed movement of objects down a slope
  • Understanding assessed before and after discussion
  • FOUND: increased level of knowledge and understanding but children did not come to the same conclusions
  • Supports Piaget's theory of children forming their own metal representations