Vygotsky

• What does Vygotsky say is important for cognitive development?

  Social processes and language
• Children pick up tools, which are most important for life in physical , social and work environments
• Children are born with elementary functions, such as perception and memory
• The role of society is to transform elementary functions into higher functions
• Zone of proximal development - the gap between a child’s current level of development and what they can potentially learn with guidance
• Scaffolding - the help that people with more knowledge provide to children, to help them cross the Zone of Proximal development
• Conner and Cross (2003) - children with mothers who offered help when needed did better than those who offered help constantly
• Role of culture - Gredler (1992):

  Children taught a counting system going up in base 29, which is harder than the usual base 10. Children found it harder to count, showing culture affects development
• Vygotsky's theory has been criticised by Bruner (1986), who argues that there is no evidence that social interaction causes cognitive change
• Piaget‘s theory suggests that children construct their understanding of the world from their experiences, whereas Vygotsky suggests that this happens through social interactions
• Roazzi and Bryant (1998) - children working with older children do better on tasks than if they had worked alone
• Sinclair de Zwart - taught children all language needed to conserve and they still couldn’t, showing language is not important in cognitive development
• Luria (1948) - Russian psychologist who studied how people recovering from brain injuries developed cognition. He showed that recovery was linked to social context, supporting Vygotsky's ideas about the role of society in cognitive development.
• Applications - children can learn faster with scaffolding. Van Keer (2005) -7 year olds tutored by 10 year olds alongside standard teaching did better.

  • This could just be due to extra tutoring, not the fact it was their peers
• Blaye (1991) - working in pairs was more effective for 70% of students.

  • But ineffective for 30%
• Individual differences - Howe (1979): personality and style of information processing effect learning