Piaget's theory of cognitive development

Piaget’s theory of intellectual development

- discovery learning (constructivism): children construct their knowledge through experience and active learning
- biological maturation of the brain and NS underpins the pace of the child’s development
- ‘biological readiness’: development can’t be sped up – a child will learn when they’re cognitively ready
- children's thinking develops in stages and is qualitatively different to an adult
- a child’s thinking becomes more sophisticated as they move through the stages
- schema development

cognitive development as a result of maturation (the effects of the biological process of ageing) and interaction with the environment.

mental structures

Piaget → intelligence is our ‘ability to adapt to our environment’

knowledge is actively discovered by using mental structures: 
- functional invariants: fixed structures/processes that assist with discovery and understanding knowledge
→ intelligence is the process of adaptation - accommodation and assimilation. 
- variant structures: changing structures that develop as knowledge is discovered
→ schemas – units of intelligence – schemas develop and become more complex  
→ operations – strings of schemas assembled in a logical order. 

schemas

- cognitive framework of beliefs and expectations that help us to organise and interpret info in brain

- babies born with basic innate schema – sucking and grasping

- developed from experience and help us to make sense of new info

- ‘reference point’ - behave appropriately

- operations: more advanced, logical schemas

- schemas help children understand the world around them

how schemas develop

babies are born with simple motor schema, e.g. a grasping schema. this would include moving a hand and shaping it around an object in coordination with what they see. 

as we get older (and have more experiences), our schemas become more detailed and sophisticated, e.g. schema for what happens in a dentist, etc. 

via the process of adaptation:
assimilation: fitting new environmental experiences into existing schemas
accommodation: forming a new schema distinct from the existing schema. this happens cuz the existing schema has to change cuz incoming info conflicts with what is already known (i.e. disequilibrium).

equilibration and disequilibrium

the driving force behind adaptation is the principle of equilibration. this is where there’s a mental balance between what’s already known and incoming info.

equilibrium occurs when a child’s schema can deal with most new info via assimilation. but, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new info can’t be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation). equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as frustration is undesirable and individuals seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge (accommodation).

cognitive conflict: challenging new tasks to do to stimulate accommodation (disequilibrium)

we are motivated to learn when our existing schemas do now allow us to make sense of something new

- the individual strives to maintain a sense of equilibrium
- equilibration
- new conflicting info can’t be assimilated into an existing schema = disequilibrium
- individual is motivated to learn in order to restore balance and achieve equilibrium
- new or adapted schema created – so children learn by acting on the world – discovery learning. (constructivism - we construct our understanding of the world by interacting with it)
- however, a young child can’t always accommodate new experiences to new schemas because their brain and NS is not biologically mature enough yet

Piaget and the role of language

language follows thought – understanding comes before language

cognitive maturity is a prerequisite for language development (not vice versa)

AO3 - evaluations of Piaget’s theory of schema development

limitation: unscientific

strength: research support for innate schemas

strength: real world applications

AO3 - limitation of Piaget’s theory of schema development: unscientific

some aspects (e.g. assimilation and accommodation) not testable because difficult to operationalise.

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development can’t fully explain how a child’s mind develops, thus lacks validity.

biased sample, only tested pps similar background to himself, educated children from a mc European background. such children may be more highly motivated than children from less educated backgrounds and from different cultures and this thus reduces validity.

AO3 - strength of Piaget’s theory of schema development: research support for innate schemas

• Fantz (1961) studied 2-month-old babies by putting a display board above them with two pictures attached – a sketch of a human face and a bullseye

• the babies spent twice as long looking at the human face, he claimed showing that humans babies innate schemas for facial recognition

AO3 - strength of Piaget’s theory of schema development: real world applications

Piaget’s idea of constructivism has revolutionised classroom teaching. old-fashion classroom, children sat silently in rows copying from the board, replaced by activity-oriented classrooms children actively engage in tasks and construct their own understanding of the curriculum.

learning by discovery can take different forms depending on age of child. teacher's role is to provide materials for play and opportunities for discerning new aspects of the world. children encouraged to learn via discovery, e.g. flipped learning.

Piaget’s theory has benefitted educational systems around the world who have adopted more active methods of teaching to allow learning to occur.

COUNTER: Bennett (1976) - children taught via formal methods did better on reading, maths and English. the general lack of success for discovery learning may be due to the fact that teachers in formal classrooms spend more time on the core subjects that are assessed. discovery learning requires more sensitivity and experience from teachers in knowing how and when to guide pupils. thus, it’s not the method but the application of it which is the problem.