Define cognitive development
the development of all mental processes, including thinking, reasoning and our understanding of the world.
Piaget’s concept of schema
We are born with very little schema with only enough to help us interact with the world and others.
As we go thru life, more schemas are developed.
In cognitive development, more detailed schemas are made for people and themselves as well as schema for objects.
e.g. me-schema where a child’s knowledge about themselves is stored.
The motivation to learn: Disequilibrium and Equilibration
when we don’t understand something it’s because it’s not part of our existing schema and so we our motivated to learn.
Disequilibrium: motivation leads to disequilibrium - its the unpleasant state of not being balanced.
Equilibration: this is achieved when escaping disequilibrium. It occurs when we adapt ourselves to the new situation and deepen our understanding to make sense of it and build on our schema. Equilibration is the preferred mental state when everything is balanced again after encountering new information and developing one’s understanding of the topic.
How Learning takes place: Assimilation and Accommodation
learning is a process of adapting to a new situation in order to understand it.
Learning occurs via two processes:
Assimilation: when already understanding the new experience and so adding to our schema by equilibrating.
Accommodation: when there’s a completely new experience and one must adjust to the situation by either radically changing their schema or by building new schema.
Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
PEEL+: A strength of Piaget’s theory is that there’s supporting research. In Howe et al study they placed children ages 9-12 in groups and asked them to discuss how objects move on slopes. They found that each child’s understanding of how objects move on slopes had improved. They also found that each child’s understanding was not more similar but rather each one had drawn a different conclusion. A strength of this study is that it was a highly controlled study done in a lab setting. This increases the internal validity of Howe et al study and indicates that any differences in conclusions on how an object moves on a slope must be due to the fact that each individual has a specific mental representation that’s different to another person. This provides support for Piaget’s theory as clearly children do form an individual mental representation of the world.
PEEL+: Another strength of Piaget’s theory is that it has real world application. By Piaget introducing the idea that children learn better when actively exploring the situation and building their own mental representation of it, it has led to changes in teaching. The original way of children simply copying down what’s presented to them has now been replaced with activities where they can actively engage and build their own understanding of the new information. This type of learning is known as discovery learning and has helped to develop how teachers teach to improve student’s understanding. However, there is a lack of evidence to indicate that discovery learning improves children’s understanding. Lazonder and Harmsen found that when teachers put in a lot of effort it was extremely effective for the children yet this may be due to effectiveness and not because the child learnt it themselves. This indicates that although Piaget’s theory has helped teachers to develop their teaching style into a way that improves children’s knowledge, it’s unclear why this has occurred and it may not be due to the children creating a mental representation.
What are Piaget’s 4 stages of intellectual development and the ages at which they occur
Stage 1: Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
Stage 2: Pre-operational stage (2-7 years)
Stage 3: Stage of Concrete Operations (7-11 years)
Stage 4: Stage of Formal Operations (11+ years)
Stage 1: Sensorimotor stage - what happens
- The baby responds to the world through sensory and motor schema.
- They learn to co-ordinate what they see and feel with their movements.
- Children learn through trial and error - first learn that they can move their own body and then they learn that they can move objects separate to themselves.
- Babies develop object permanence in this stage (realisation that objects continue to exist even if they cannot be seen).
- between 0-8 months, if the object cannot be seen then it doesn’t exist.
- by the age of 1: object permanence is developed and they will search for an object in the last place they saw it.
Piaget’s study on the sensorimotor stage - testing object permanence
- He gave a child an object to play with and then took the toy from their hand and hid it beneath a blanket.
- If the child searched for the toy, it suggested that the child knew the object existed even if it was out of sight and so they had developed object permanence.
- He found that babies less than 8 months old did not search for the toy - seemed as if they had forgotten that they toy existed.
- At around 8 months, the child searched for the toy under the blanket. However, once Piaget moved the toy to another place, the child searched for the toy where they last found it not where they had last seen it. This is called simple object permanence.
- At around 12 months, the babies began to look for the toy where they last saw it and so had developed a more complex object permanence.
Evaluation of sensorimotor stage: research contradicting
PEEL: Limitation is contradicting research on object permanence (first stage - sensorimotor stage): Piaget seems to have underestimated children’s ability of object permanence. In Bower et al study he found that babies as young as 4 months old do have object permanence which was demonstrated by a rise in heart rate when the cloth was removed and the toy was not there. This indicates that the babies knew that the toy still existed when it was out of sight they just didn’t have the ability to pull the cloth off. This undermines Piaget’s theory and indicates that object permanence actually starts at a much younger age than Piaget expected.
What idea is the pre-operational stage based on
This is based on the idea that children lack many abilities even though they can use language to represent things around them.
Define conservation
This refers to the idea that some properties of an object (e.g. mass, volume and number) do not change even if the appearance of the object changes.
Children of this age are unable to carry out conservation tasks successfully.
Piaget’s study on conservation
He placed two rows of 8 identical counters side by side - all children could identify that there were an equal number of counters in each row.
When the counters in one row were pushed closer together, those children in the pre-operational stage said that that row had fewer counters - struggled to conserve.
Define egocentrism
The inability to take on the perspective of another person.
Believing that everyone views the world from one’s own point of view.
Piaget’s study on egocentrism
He used the three mountains task.
Three different mountains: one had snow on the top, one had a house, and the third had a cross. The child was asked what the doll could see.
Pre-operational children would choose their own perspective.
What is class inclusion
Children begin to understand classification, that objects can be put into categories based on their physical properties.
Pre-operational children struggle with advanced classification skills - they cannot place one object into many categories. They struggle with class inclusion which is the idea that classes of objects have their own subsets and also belong to a bigger subset.
They don’t understand that an object can be put in more than one category.
Evaluation on class inclusion: research contradicting
PEEL: Limitation is that Piaget’s class inclusion findings are contradicted by new research. Siegler and Svetina showed that children under Piaget’s findings of age 7 are capable of understanding class inclusion. They gave 100 five year olds ten class inclusion tasks. They randomly assigned each child into one of four feedback conditions, each one involving a different strategy of learning. The first feedback condition was empirical explanation, the second was logical explanation, third was both empirical and logical, and the last condition involved no explanation as it acted as a control group. The scores improved the most for the logical group, suggesting that the children have acquired a real understanding of class inclusion. This therefore suggests that Piaget was wrong about the age that children were capable of class inclusion tasks, underestimating younger children’s abilities as he assumed that they were incapable when in fact they just needed to be given the correct logic to follow.
Evaluation on egocentrism: research contradicting
PEEL: A limitation is that Piaget’s view on egocentrism has a lack of support. Hughes tested the ability of children to see a situation from two people’s viewpoints using a model with two intersecting walls and three dolls, a child and two police officers. The children had to hide a doll from two policeman dolls. Once familiarised with the task, children as young as three and a half were able to place the child so that the police officer wouldn’t be able to see it 90% of the time, and four year olds could do this 90% of the time with two police officers to hide from. This means that when the scenario is more adaptable and makes sense, children are able to imagine other perspectives much earlier than Piaget expected. This shows how Piaget underestimated the abilities of younger children therefore undermining his whole theory.
Stage 3: Stage of Concrete Operations
They begin to have the basics of logical reasoning. However, their understanding is still limited as it only deals with the actual world (only deals with concrete information).
They struggle to consider hypothetical ideas. They are able to solve seriation problems but they can only solve these problems if they apply to actual objects.
Most important achievement in this stage is conservation: physical properties of an object don’t change even when a change is made to the object’s physical appearance.
Piaget’s Study on Conservation
Child shown two glasses A and B and asked whether they contain the same amount of water.
The researcher then pours the liquid in B into a long but tall glass C. The child is then asked whether A and C contain the same amount of water.
Children in the pre-operational stage will say no because it’s based on what they see - the quantities of water look different so they cannot have the same amount of water.
However, children in concrete operational stage will be able to see that although a change has been made the quantities stay the same.
Evaluation on conservation: research contradicting
PEEL: Limitation is that Piaget’s conservation research is flawed. Children participating in Piaget’s study may have been influenced by seeing the experimenter change the appearance of the counters or liquid. McGarrigle and Margaret Donaldson replicated Piaget’s number conservation task with 4-6 year olds and found that most children answered incorrectly. However, in another variation they added a ‘naughty teddy’ which appeared and knocked the counters closer together and now 72% answered correctly and said that there were the same number of counters as before. This means that children aged 4-6 could conserve as long as it wasn’t the researcher interfering with the counters. This therefore suggests that Piaget was wrong about the age at which conservation appears, further undermining his theory.
Stage 4: Stage of Formal Operations
Children are able to perform abstract and systematic thought.
They can focus on the form of an argument instead of the details.
They can solve seriation tasks in relation to abstract concepts and concrete objects.
More hypothetical and sophisticated thinking.
Can extend their reasoning abilities to objects or situations that they have not yet experienced first-hand. Can think about possible occurrences.
Piaget’s study on the Formal Operational Stage: Pendulum Task
Children were presented with a length of string and a set of weights.
They had three factors and had to consider which factor was the most important in determining the speed of the swing on the pendulum. The factors included: length of the string, heaviness of the weight, strength of the push.
The pps could change the length of the string and the weight. In order to measure the speed of the pendulum, they must count the number of swings per minute.
In order to achieve the correct answer and to be in the formal operational stage, one must understand that they need to change one variable at a time e.g. trying different lengths with the same weight.
Evaluation of formal operational stage: research contradicting
PEEL: A limitation is that Piaget’s formal operational findings are challenged by research. Piaget thought that children are capable of formal operational tasks at 11. However other research suggests that he overestimated this ability. Watson found that only 2/32 children who were tested on a variety of formal operational tasks were substantially correct. Bradmets found that at age 15, 1/62 participants were able to demonstrate formal reasoning. Dansen found that only ⅓ of adults ever reach the stage of formal reasoning, and even those who do, not in their adolescents. Therefore, Piaget overestimated children’s ability to complete formal operational tasks and it doesn’t occur at young ages and even more so with abstract ideas and theoretical understandings. This suggests that Piaget’s findings on the operational stage may be incorrect, thereby underestimating his whole theory.
Evaluation supporting Piaget contradicting all limitations
All the limitations criticise the age that the particular cognitive stage is reached and does not criticise the actual characteristics of the stage. This means that although Piaget’s timings were wrong, the actual principles of each stage is correct.
