Piaget's Basic Cognitive Concepts

Schema - Piaget used the term "schema" to refer to the cognitive structures by which individuals intellectually adapt to and organize their environment. It is an individual's way to understand or create meaning about a thing or experience. It is like the mind has a filing cabinet and each drawer has folders that contain files of things he has had an experience with. For instance, if a child sees a dog for the first time, he creates his own schema of what a dog is. It has four legs and a tail. It barks. It's furry. The child then "puts this description of a dog 'on file' in his mind." When he sees another similar dog, he "pulls" out the file (his schema of a dog) in his mind, looks at the animal, and says, "four legs, tail, barks, furry....That's a dog!"

Assimilation - This is the process of fitting a new experience into an existing or previously created cognitive structure or schema. If the child sees another dog, this time a little smaller one, he would make sense of what he is seeing by adding this new information (a different-looking dog) into his schema of a dog.

Accommodation - This is the process of creating a new schema.If the same child now sees another animal that looks a little bit like a dog, but somehow different. He might try to fit it into his schema of a dog, and say, "Look mommy, what a funny looking dog. Its bark is funny too!" Then the mommy explains, "That's not a funny looking dog. That's a goat!" With mommy's further descriptions, the child will now create a new schema, that of a goat. He now adds a new file in his filing cabinet.

Equilibration- Piaget believed that people have the natural need to understand how the world works and to find order, structure, and predictability in their life. Equilibration is achieving proper balance between assimilation and accommodation. When our experiences do not match our schemata (plural of schema) or cognitive structures, we experience cognitive disequilibrium. This means there is a discrepancy between what is perceived and what is understood. We then exert effort through assimilation and accommodation to establish equilibrium once more.

Cognitive development involves a continuous effort to adapt to the environment in terms of assimilation and accommodation. In this sense, Piaget's theory is similar in nature to other constructivist perspectives of learning like Bruner and Vygotsky.