Piaget

Transformation of Knowledge

1. Orderly: logical sequence to change

2. Cumulative: all that was there plus something new

3. Directional: move toward greater complexity

Genetic Epistemology: developmental theory of knowledge

• Genetic: development (not heredity)

• Epistemology: study of knowledge

Piaget believed that children organise their knowledge of the world into increasingly more complex cognitive structures

• Children’s schemas assimilate and accommodate to produce balance between the mind and the world

Schema Stages

1. Assimilation: integrating new experiences into existing schemas.

       A child always tries to fit their knowledge of the world around them into the cognitive schemas that they possess.

2. Equilibrium: balance between the mind’s structures and the external world.

3. Disequilibrium: something happens to cast a doubt on the theory.

4. Accommodation: altering schemas when new experiences don’t fit.

Assimilation and accommodation are the two sides of adaptation: Piaget’s term for what most of us call learning.

Organisation: predisposition to combine simple mental structures into more complex systems.

Adaption: constantly adjusting cognitive structures to interact effectively with the environment.

Piaget’s 4 Stages of Development

The Sensorimotor Stage: 0-2 years

• Learn through senses and motor skills

• Development of mental representation (precursor to language)

• Six substages increasing in cognitive complexity

◦The Preoperational Stage: 2 – 7 years

• Gain the ability to use mental representation to think about the world

• Development of symbolic thought (pretend play, language)

  • Symbolisation: Children are able to pretend and to use symbols i.e. something that represents something else.

• Children demonstrate a clear understanding of past and future

  • Egocentric: ****children see things from their own point of view

  • Centration: ****focusing on one aspect at a time

  • Conservation: ****struggling to understand that quantity remains constant despite changes in shape or appearance

Concrete Operational Period: 7 – 11 years

• Use logical reasoning about concrete situations

  • Concrete operation: reversible mental action on real, concrete objects

  • Operations: logical operations or principles we use when solving problems.

• Understand reversibility and reduce centration and egocentrism

• Improved deductive reasoning (if grounded in real-world contexts) using imagination.

  • 6-7 years – conservation of number, length, and liquid volume

  • 7-8 years – conservation of substance and reversibility

  • 9-10 years – conservation of area

• Horizontal Decalage: uneven cognitive development across tasks requiring different levels of abstraction.

Formal Operations: 11 year onwards

• Abstract, idealistic, hypothetical thinking

• Develop hypothetico-deductive reasoning

• Systematic and logical reasoning about ideas

  • Formal logic: combinatorial system of operations

  • Metacognition: the ability to think about thinking

    • Requires greater memory and cognitive control

    • Allows for the world of ideas and possibilities to be explored in the world of the imagination

Critical Reactions to Piaget’s Theory

• Concept of stage?

• How do we account for decalage?

  • Decalage: uneven cognitive abilities

• What is the role of language in preoperational thought?

• How do we operationalise ‘operations’?

• Unnecessary emphasis on logic?

• Do all individuals reach formal operations?

• Do children really learn best on their own?