Vygotsky's theory

• • Vygotsky agreed that children's reasoning abilities develop in a particular sequence and that such abilities are qualitatively different at different ages.
  • Vygostsky saw cognitive development as a social process of learning from more experienced others. Knowledge is first intermental, between the more and less expert individual, then intramental within the mind of the less expert individual.
  • Also saw language as an important part of cognitive development.
• Cultural differences in cognitive abilities

  • If reasoning abilities are acquired from the more experienced individuals with whom a child has contact, it follows that the child will acquire the reasoning abilities of those people.
  • This means that there may be cultural differences in cognitive development, with children picking up the mental 'tools' that will be most important for life within the physical, social and work environments of their culture.
• Zone of proximal development

  = The gap between a child's current level of development and what they can potentially do with the right help from a more expert other.
• ZPD

  • Expert assistance allows a child to cross the ZPD and understand as much of a situation as they are capable.
  • Vygotsky believed that children develop a more advanced understanding of a situation and therefore the more advanced reasoning abilities needed to deal with it by learning from others as opposed to through individual explanation.
  • Believed that higher mental functions (formal reasoning) could only be acquired through interaction with more advanced others.
• Scaffolding

  = Process of helping a learner cross the zone of proximal development and advance as much as they can, given their stage of development.

  • Demonstration
  • Preparation
  • General prompts
  • Specific verbal instructions
  • The level of help given in scaffolding declines as a learner crosses the zone of proximal development
• Evaluation- support for the ZPD

  • Clear evidence to showing there is a gap between the level of reasoning a child can achieve on their own and what they can achieve with help from a more expert other.
  • Eg: children age 4-5 given an estimating the number of sweets in a box task. Most children working alone failed to give a good estimate. In the expert condition, older children offered prompts- which helped them master the task.
  • Shows that children can develop additional reasoning abilities when working with a more expert individual, so ZPD is a valid concept.
• Evaluation- support for scaffolding

  • Many studies observed that adults provide support for younger children learning to master new tasks.
  • Research also shows that the level of help given by an expert partner declines during the process of learning.
  • A longitudinal study observed children engaging in problem solving tasks with help from their mothers.
  • Distinct changes in help were observed over time- the mothers used less and less direct intervention and more hints and prompts as children gained experience. Also increasingly offered help when it was needed rather than constantly.
• Evaluation- real world application

  • Practical application in education.
  • Idea that children learn more and faster with appropriate scaffolding has raised expectations of what they should be able to achieve.
  • Social interaction in learning, through group work, peer tutoring and individual adult assistance has been used to scaffold children through their ZPD.
  • Eg: 7 year olds tutored by 10 year olds in addition to whole class teaching progressed further in reading than just whole class teaching. And teaching assistants were very effective at improving rate of learning.
• Evaluation- counterpoint

  • Although Vygotsky's idea about the role of social interaction have had useful applications, these may not be universal.
  • In china classes of up to 50 children learn very effectively in lecture style classrooms with very few individual interactions with peers or tutors.
  • So vygotsky may have overestimated the importance of scaffolding in learning.