Vygotsky- sociocultural theory of cog development

similarities with piaget theory

• active learners

• interaction with the world is important for development

• constructivists - construct understanding through experience

main points of theory

• importance of socioculture

• instruction is at the heart of learning

• inner speech

define socioculture

brings together how society, the social world of a child and the culture in which the child is living at that time may impact their development

socioculture - play

• socioculture determines the type of practical activities we engage in and the things we learn

• children often imitate in play, this affects the type of play-based activities children engage in

Morelli et al. (2003)

• observed toddlers in three different communities

1. communities in US

2. Efe people - foragers in Democratic Republic of Congo

3. indigenour Mayan group from Guatemala

main differences

• children from Efe and Mayan communities imitated work of adults in their play more than children from US

Socioculture - problem solving

socioculture influences how familiar we are with thinking and reasoning about certain topics or problems

Cole et al (1971), Scribner and Cole (1978)

Kpelle people of Liberia not as good as US participants at estimating length but better at estimating quantities of rice as it is a daily activity

Luria

studied two groups of farmers from Uzbekistan

1. traditional farmers living in small villages

2. farmers in larger communities who had some formal schooling

showed 4 pics and asked to pick the 3 that went together

• farmers with formal schooling selected three images that go together as an ‘abstract category’

• traditional farmers made decision based on practical situations relevant to depicted objects

Chen, Mo and Honomichl (2004)

studied two groups of students

1. US students

2. Chinese students

showed both groups problems based on:

• western tale ‘hansel and gretel’ - the cave problem

• chinese tale ‘weighing the elephant’ - the statue problem

found that US students were better at solving the cave problem - using strategies analogous to hansel and gretel

chinese students were better at solving the statue problem - using strategies analogous to weighing the elephant tale

language

• socio culture determines the languages we speak

• subtle differences in language can lead to noticeable differences in cognition

Gordon (2004)

• in two Amazonian languages, no words for quantities >5

• individuals can solve maths problems easily with numbers less than 5

• if children from this culture learn a language with words for numbers above 5, the become better at solving maths with numbers >5

supports idea that language influences numerical skills

Zuber et al (2009)

• english - verbally expressing numbers between 21 and 99 - decade said first and unit after e.g. 47 = forty seven

• german - opposite is true - 47 = seven forty

• german kids often have problems learning to convert spoken numbers to written numbers e.g. 74 instead of 47

self speech and inner speech

Vygotsky thought that children’s behaviour is:

1. controlled by adults instructions

2. private speech said out loud (i.e. self-speech)

3. internalised monologues (i.e. inner speech) at around 7 years

transition of language from a tool of communication to a tool for thought

he saw self-speech as essential for children’s cognitive development

evidence for importance of self-speech and inner speech

• children engage in more self-speech if a task is challenging (Berk, 1992)

• children who use speech when facing challenging tasks are more attentive and perform better on cog tasks than ‘quiet’ children (Behrend et al, 1992)

• children prevented from using inner speech perform more poorly on planning tasks (Lidstone, Meins and Fernyhough, 2010)

the role of others in learning

• childrens cognition improves through interacting with other people who have more knowledge/experience

zone of proximal development

• the increase in development that a child can reach through assistance by a more competent person

• children learn best in this zone

scaffolding - bruner

• learning is enhanced when more competent people provide a framework that supports children’s thinking at a higher level than they could manage by themselves

• scaffolding is reduced as the child becomes more capable

• can be done by teacher, parent or peer

examples

• modelling an action

• suggesting a strategy to solve problem

• restructuring problem into parts that are more manageable

Wood et al (1976) - five aspects of scaffolding

• recruitment - engage child’s interest

• reduction of degrees of freedom - reduce number of acts that are needed to arrive at a solution

• direction maintenance - maintain child’s motivation

• marking critical features - highlight important features of problem

• demonstration - model solution or parts of task to stimulate child to imitate this

evidence for scaffolding

• parents who provide supportive learning environment have children who generate more private speech and are therefore more successful (Behrend et al, 1992)

• parental scaffolding while children did a puzzle predicted preschoolers academic attainment one year later as it supported development of high level cognitive skills e.g. memory (Devine, Bignardi and Hughs, 2016)

scaffolding in education

‘Vygotskian’ classroom

• structured learning activities

• helpful hints tailored to child’s current abilities

• monitoring the learners progress and gradually turning over activities to learner

• collaborative learning exercises where students assist each other

Freund (1995)

children (3-5) asked to help a puppet decide which furnishings they should put in a dollhouse

children split into two groups

1. alone with corrective feedback from experimenter

2. with mother and guided learning

children then performed a final more complex furniture sorting task

• children who worked with mothers performed better on the final task than those that worked alone

why does collaborative learning help?

• motivation is enhanced when working with another person (Johnson & Johnson, 1989)

• means child has to explain their ideas, persuade and resolve conflicts

• increases self speech which supports learning

cultural differences in collaboration - ruvalcaba & rogoff (2022)

during a 10 min shared task in pairs

• mexican american children collaborated through fluid synchrony (skilfully sharing decisions) and proposal building (discussing proposals before taking an action)

• european american children collaborated mostly via proposal building and were rarely in fluid synchrony, they also more often resisted one another

applying vygotsky’s theory to motor skills

motor skills = new view of world, altered perception, new opportunities to explore, new ways to interact and communicate

motor milestones

predominantly based on WEIRD data and scales developed with white western infants

data from WEIRD infants shown:

• motor skills as developing linearly and in order

• babies develop these skills when their bodies are ready

this can lead to faulty conclusions due to the ‘norm’ being based on a narrow population

cross cultural example - Kokwet community