Evaluation

• Strength - Evidence for ZPD

  Roazzi and Bryant (1998) - recruited 4-5 year olds and asked them to estimate how many sweets were in a box, then did a similar task three weeks later by themselves

  • Group 1: has an older child who gave prompts and support during the task
  • Group 2: Worked alone for the first task

  The majority of group 1 gave a good estimate, whilst the majority of group 2 did not, which was still true in a later task
• Strength - Support for the idea of scaffolding

  Roazzi and Bryant (1998) - adults and older children provide support for younger children learning to master new tasks

  Weakness - However, this does not tell us anything about what happens during that support though, better evidence for the idea of scaffolding comes from research showing that the level of help given by the expert partner decides during the process of learning
• Strength - Support for the idea of scaffolding

  Keer and Verhaege (2005) - Compared 7-year-olds who were being taught reading using standard methods with those being given peer tutoring on top.of standard teaching

  Those receiving peer tutoring progressed in reading more, this gain was maintained at a 2 month follow up
• Strength - Real world application

  Vygotsky's ideas have been highly influential in education in the last decade

  The idea that children can 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 from teachers and assistance, has been used to scaffold children through their zones of proximal development