cogmative development
a general term describing the development of all mental processes, in a particular thinking, reasoning or understanding of the world.
schemas
contain an understanding of an object, person or idea. Schemas become increasingly complex during development as we aquire more information about each object or idea. A mental framework of belief and expectation that influence cognative processing ( developed from expirience)
assimilation
a form of learning that takes place when we aquire new information or more advanced understanding of an object or idea. When new information doesnt change our understanding much we can incooperate it into our schema.
accomodation
a form of learning that only takes place when we aquire new information that changes our understanding of a topic to the extent that we new or radically change the existing schema.
equillibrium
takes place when we encounter new information and built it into existing schemas or accomiadating it by forming a new one. So everything is balanced again.
Piaget may have overplayed the importance of equillibrium
- Piaget saw learning as very motivated process in which children learn to equlibrate because disequalibrium was an unplesant expirience
- he may have overestimated how motivated children are to learn - the children he studied were mainly from the nursery attached to his university and the sample (more motivated than the privleged class)
Piaget may have underplayed the role of other people in learning
- Piaget did not belive children learn best on their own. He saw adult and peers as an important source of discovery information
sensory motor
- 0-2
- early focus on physcial sensation and developing some basic physical cooderdination
-children learn through tiral and error in particual in moving themselves and objects around them - by around 8 months the child is capable of understanding object permenance
object permenance
- piaget wathed babies looking at objects as they were removed from sight throughout the first year
- before 8 months children immediately sustained their attention away from the object
- however after around 8 months they would continue to look for it
pre operational
- 2-7
- by the age of 2 the toddler is mobile and can use language but still lacks reasoning ability
- this means they have some characteristic errors in reasoning
- conservation
- egocentrism
- class inclusion
conservation
- basic mathamatical understanding that quantity remains constant eve when the apperance of the object changed
- in his number conservation epiriment piaget placed identical counters side by side
- even younger children reasoned that each row had the same amount of counters
- however when counter were pushed closer together, pre operational children struggled to conserve and usually said their were fewer counters
egocentrism
- see the world only from one point of view
three mountain task
- a doll is placed on each side of the model that is faced the scene from a differnt angle that the children
- preoperational children found this difficult and often chose the scene that matched thier own point of view
class inclusion
- refers to the ability to classify objects into to or more categories simaltaneously
- Piaget and Inhelder (1964) found that children under the age of seven with the more advanced skill of class inclusion
- so when they showed 7 - 8 year old children pictures of 5 dogs and 2 cats and were asked if there were more dog or animals children tended to respond they saw more dogs
concrete operational
- 7-11
- preform much better on egocentrism and class inclusion
- struggle to reason about abstract ideas and to imagine objects or situations they cant see
formal operational
11+
- children are capable of formal reasoning. This means children are able to focus on form of an argument rather than being distracted by its contents
- formal reasoning
how can formal reasoning be tested
using syllogism, for example “ all yellow cats have two heads I have a yellow cat named Charlie . How many heads does he have?”
Vygotskys zone of proximal development
One of the key features of Vygotsky’s theory is that of the zone of proximal development (ZPD), ‘proximal’ meaning ‘in the vicinity/region of’
The ZPD conceptualises where a child currently stands in terms of their cognitive development and the ‘zones’ they must cross to reach the limits of their potential, i.e., the ZPD presents an aspirational model of what a child could achieve given the right conditions
Three nested circles illustrating child development: centre shows “Child can do unaided,” middle “Zone of Proximal Development,” outer “Child cannot do.”
The zone of proximal development indicates what a child may be able to achieve with the guidance of a More Knowledgeable Other.
Vygotsky argued that a child is only able to go beyond their current level of achievement with the help of a More Knowledgeable Other (MKO) in the form of an adult (parent, teacher, etc.) who can guide and assist them on their learning journey
Vygotsky (unlike Piaget) believed that children cannot progress intellectually without the help of a MKO i.e., they need to harness more than just discovery learning in order to be able to progress and deepen their understanding
The importance of social interaction and the guidance of a MKO led Vygotsky to claim that children are ‘little apprentices’ (as opposed to Piaget’s view, that they are ‘little scientists’)
scaffolding
to explain the ways in which Vygotsky saw children’s learning being, literally, like scaffolding from which support is given then gradually taken away as the structure underneath gets stronger
Scaffolding is the process by which the MKO offers constructive help and guidance to the child in order for a particular task or skill to be completed or practised
Scaffolding is designed to be specific to the needs of each individual child, giving them the opportunity to achieve success in ways that might have not been possible without it
Scaffolding includes strategies such as maintaining the child’s interest in a task, simplifying complex ideas or actions, giving specific verbal instructions, and demonstrating the task
The MKO begins the scaffolding process by offering a clear guiding hand in the child’s learning, which the child may depend on heavily at first, but gradually, as the child becomes more skilled and confident, the scaffolding is withdrawn, bit by bit, until the child is able to complete the task independently
vygotsky strengths
Vygotsky’s theory has had far-reaching influence on the ways in which children learn in schools, as evidenced by the role of teaching assistants and personalised learning programmes which are designed to both scaffold the child’s learning and help them navigate their individual ZPDs
Vygotsky placed the child squarely within social and cultural contexts, which means that his theory has good external validity
vygotsky weaknesses
Scaffolding is difficult to operationalise and measure, as its very nature tends to be subjective, i.e., what will work for one child may not work for another; thus, it lacks reliability
Although Vygotsky emphasised the importance of culture, some researchers have claimed that this is a universal view, lacking cultural relativism, e.g. Rogoff (1990) points out that scaffolding is largely dependent on verbal instruction, which may not be applicable/relevant to all cultures
Wood and middleton procedure
- 12 mothers were asked to teach their 4 year old how to build a tower out of interlocking wood pieces so children could eventually do it on their own
- sessions were recorded and analyzed
wood and middleton
findings
identified 5 types of scaffolding
- general suggestion ( now you could build the tower)
- specific verbal instruction ( get four blocks)
- indicating materials ( you need to start with that one)
-preparing for assembly (turn it this way round)
- physical demonstrations ( the wood peg fits in the …)
- those who were most sucessful were those who helped subtly
wood and middleton
evaluation
- small sample size
- evidence for scaffolding
-high internal validity
-ecological validity
