Piaget’s theory

• What does Piaget suggest?

  He suggested that there are two types of learning: accommodation and assimilation.
• what is accommodation?

  we are exposed to new information which changes an existing schema, so to deal with this information, we accommodate it by forming a new schema.
• what is assimilation?

  when we are exposed to new information that doesn’t change our existing knowledge, and so we incorporate it into an existing schema.
• what did Piaget propose about schema?

  Piaget suggested that we understand the world around us by using schemas. The main cognitive structure which changes during cognitive development is the schema.
• what is schema?

  schema is a mental framework of knowledge and beliefs about specific information. They can influence our cognitive processing, allowing us to process large volumes of data quickly and efficiently. however, schemas can also lead to perceptual errors through distorting sensory stimuli.
• schema in babies and adults

  some schemas are innate, such as all babies are born with the schema for basic motor skills, such as grasping objects. Over time, schemas become more sophisticated as adults have developed a mental representation for everything.
• What is equilibrium?

  When a child’s experience matches their understanding, they are in a state of equilibrium.
• what is disequilibrium?

  when a child comes across a new situation that they don’t understand.
• What is Piaget’s assumption about the stages of intellectual development?

  Children pass through sequence of stages which is universal across cultures and follows the same, unchanging order. It is not predetermined by gender or culture. This theory demonstrates how thought and reason change from birth to adolescence.
• what are Piaget’s main assumptions?

  children actively build up their knowledge about the world, and don’t wait for information to come to them. He proposed that a child’s intelligence is different from an adults in quality rather than quantity, suggesting that children see the world differently from adults.
• what did he propose about cognitive development?

  this occurs through the interaction of innate capacities (nature) and environmental events (nurture) and children pass through a series of stages.
• what are the limitations of Piaget’s theory?

  nothing can actually be universal and he didn’t actually look at other cultures.
• Piaget’s study

  he studied children from infancy to adolescence using a naturalistic observation. he wrote diary descriptions and used clinical observations. However, the naturalistic observation means it is difficult to replicate and using a diary means that it can be interpreted differently. however, he did use a triangulation method of 3 different types of observation, increasing reliability.
• What is conservation?

  The ability to understand that a certain property of an object remains the same, despite any transformation that has changed the appearance of the object.