Ms. Penny B. Esporma
MA in Education, Major in Instructional Media and Design
University of Makati
2nd Semester, SY 2011 – 2012
EDUC531: Foundation of Instructional Design
Course Unit Summary
Unit 4: Key Aspects of Cognitive Development
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Piaget's theory of cognitive development is a comprehensive theory about the
nature and development of human intelligence first developed by Jean Piaget. It is
primarily known as a developmental stage theory, but in fact, it deals with the
nature of knowledge itself and how humans come gradually to acquire it, construct
it, and use it. Moreover, Piaget claims the idea that cognitive development is at the
centre of human organism and language is contingent on cognitive development.
Schemes (or schemas) are cognitive structures that help individuals organize and
understand their experiences; change with age.
Children use and adapt their schemas through two processes:
1. Assimilation occurs when children incorporate new information into their existing
knowledge schemas.
2. Accommodation occurs when children adjust their schemas to fit new
information and experiences.
Piaget believed that assimilation and accommodation operate even in very
young infants. Example: Newborns reflexively suck everything that touches their
lips, and the characteristics of each new item are learned (i.e., taste, texture,
etc.) through assimilation; however, if the infant sucks on something unpleasant
(i.e., tastes bad, is sharp, etc.,) he or she quickly learns a new schema—that
certain things should not be sucked—through accommodation.
In Piaget’s concept of organization, items are mentally grouped into categories for a
more smoothly functioning system.
Equilibration is a mechanism that helps children understand the world by resolving
cognitive conflict or disequilibrium.
Piaget believed that children pass through four stages of thought from infancy to
adolescence. Passage through the stages results from biological pressures to adapt
to the environment (assimilation and accommodation) and organize structures of
thinking.
The stages of thought are qualitatively different from one another. The way
individuals think at one stage is different from thinking at other stages.
Four Stages of Thought:
1. Sensorimotor Stage
This stage lasts from birth to about 2 years of age. Mental development is
characterized by progression in the infant’s ability to organize and coordinate
sensations with physical movements and actions.
This stage is divided into six sub-stages in which schemes change in
organization:
1.1. The simple reflexes sub-stage (0 to 1 month) involves coordinating
sensation and action through reflexive behaviors (rooting and sucking).
Babies develop the ability to produce behaviors that resemble reflexes in
the absence of obvious reflexive stimuli which is evidence that the infant is
initiating action and is actively structuring experiences in the first month.
1.2. The first habits and primary circular reactions sub-stage (1 to 4
months) involves infants’ reflexes evolving into adaptive schemes that are
more refined and coordinated. A habit is a scheme based on a simple reflex
that is separate from its eliciting stimuli. A primary circular reaction is a
scheme based on the infant’s attempt to reproduce an interesting or
pleasurable event that initially occurred by chance.
1.3. The secondary circular reactions sub-stage (4 to 8 months) involves
the infant becoming more object-oriented or focused on the world, moving
beyond preoccupation with the self in sensorimotor interactions.
1.4. The coordination of secondary circular reactions sub-stage (8 to 12
months) includes several significant changes that involve the coordination
of schemes and intentionality.
1.5. In the tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity sub-stage
(12 to 18 months), the infant becomes intrigued by the variety of
properties that objects possess and by the many things they can make
happen to objects.
1.6. In the internalization of schemes sub-stage (18 to 24 months), the
infant’s mental functioning shifts from a purely sensorimotor plane to a
symbolic plane, and the infant develops the ability to use primitive symbols.
Object permanence involves understanding that objects and events continue to
exist, even when they cannot directly be seen, heard, or touched.
The principle way that object permanence is studied is by watching an infant’s
reaction when an interesting object or event disappears. If no reaction is
displayed, it is assumed the child believes that the object no longer exists. If
infants are surprised by the disappearance and begin a search for it, it is
assumed they believe it continues to exist.
Evaluating Piaget’s Sensorimotor Stage:
• Infant development is viewed in terms of coordinating sensory input with
motor actions.
• In the last three decades, many research studies in the areas of perceptual
development and conceptual development have suggested that Piaget’s
theory needs to be revised.
• Piaget’s claim that certain processes are crucial in transitions from one stage
to the next is drawn into question by studies that find infants demonstrate
inconsistency on the A-not-B test.
• Gibson and Spelke are two scientists who have found that infants have
intermodal perception (the ability to coordinate information from two or more
sensory modalities).
• Research suggests that infants develop the ability to understand how the
world works at a very early age.
• Baillargeon found that 3-month-olds demonstrate object permanence.
• Meltzoff questions whether our method for testing object permanence is
valid.
• Many researchers conclude that Piaget wasn’t specific enough about how
infants learn about their world and that infants are more competent than
Piaget thought.
2. Preoperational Stage
This stage encompasses the period from 2 to 7 years of age. Stable concepts are
formed, mental reasoning emerges, egocentricism is present, and magical
beliefs are formed. The term preoperational emphasizes that a child is not able
to think in an operational way.
Operations are internalized sets of actions that allow the child to do mentally
what before he or she did physically.
Preoperational thought can be divided into two sub-stages:
2.1. In Symbolic Function Sub-stage (between the ages of 2 and 4), the
young child gains the ability to mentally represent an object that is not
present.
Two limitations of children’s thinking during this sub-stage include:
2.1.1. Egocentrism. This is the inability to distinguish between one’s own
perspective and someone else’s perspective. Piaget and Inhelder’s
three mountain task demonstrated that children did not have the
ability to take another’s perspective when viewing objects on the three
mountains.
2.1.2. Animism. The belief that inanimate objects have “lifelike” qualities and
are capable of action.
2.2. In Intuitive Thought Sub-stage (between approximately 4 and 7
years of age), Children begin to use primitive reasoning and want to know
the answers to all sorts of questions.
Centration and the Limits of Preoperational Thought:
• Centration involves focusing or centering attention on one characteristic to
the exclusion of all others.
• Children in this substage demonstrate a lack of conservation, which is the
awareness that altering an object’s or a substance’s appearance does not
change its basic properties.
• Centration and children’s inability to reverse actions contribute to the lack of
conservation.
• Gelman states that children are more likely to be able to conserve if they
have been trained to pay attention to the relevant aspects of the task. She
also states that children develop conservation earlier than Piaget thought and
that attention is especially important in explaining conservation.
3. Concrete Operational Stage
Concrete operational children are able to classify objects and consider
relationships between them.
They are capable of seriation (understanding quantitative relationships between
objects) and transitivity (understanding relations between classes of objects).
4. Formal Operational Stage
4.1. Abstract, Idealistic, and Logical Thinking
4.1.1. Formal operational thought involves the ability to reason about what is
possible and hypothetical, as opposed to what is real, and the ability to
reflect on one’s own thoughts.
4.1.2. Hypothetical-deductive reasoning is the formal operational concept
that adolescents have the cognitive ability to develop hypotheses, or
best guesses, about ways to solve problems, such as an algebraic
equation. Then they systematically deduce, or conclude, which is the
best path to follow in solving the equation.
4.1.3. Critics argue that there is more variation in individuals’ formal
operational abilities than Piaget envisioned.
4.1.4. Only about one in three young adolescents is a formal operational
thinking.
4.1.5. Many adults never become formal operational thinkers.
4.2. Adolescent Egocentrism
Adolescent egocentrism is the heightened self-consciousness of
adolescents, which is reflected in their belief that others are as interested
in them as they themselves are, and in their sense of personal uniqueness.
Adolescent egocentrism can be divided into two types of social thinking:
4.2.1. Imaginary audience refers to the heightened self-consciousness of
adolescents that is reflected in their belief that others are as interested
in them as they themselves are. The imaginary audience involves
attention-getting behavior—the attempt to be noticed, visible, and “on
stage.”
4.2.2. Personal fable is the part of adolescent egocentrism that involves an
adolescent’s sense of uniqueness and invulnerability, and may be
linked to the reckless behavior often seen in adolescence.
Adolescents also often show a sense of invincibility—feeling that although
others might be vulnerable to tragedies; these things won’t happen to them.
Applying And Evaluating Piaget’s Theory
1. Piaget and Education
1.1. Take a constructivist approach. Students learn best by making active
discoveries, reflecting on them, and discussing them rather than blindly
imitating the teacher or doing things by rote.
1.2. Facilitate rather than direct learning. Observe and find out how students
think and ask relevant questions to stimulate their thinking, and ask them
to explain their answers.
1.3. Consider the child’s knowledge and level of thinking. Children’s thinking is
not like that of adults, and teachers should try to consider children’s stage
of cognitive development when evaluating how they interact with students,
and help guide them to a higher level of understanding.
1.4. Use ongoing assessment. Student’s written and verbal explanations of their
reasoning can be used to evaluate progress.
1.5. Promote the student’s intellectual health. Piaget believed that children
should not be pushed and pressured into achieving too much before they
are mature enough to think at a higher level. Faster is not necessarily
better when it comes to intellectual development.
1.6. Turn the classroom into a setting of exploration and discovery. Classrooms
should be less structured, and predetermined lesson plans and assignments
should not be used. Observed interests and natural participation in activities
(which may be predetermined) set the course of learning.
2. Evaluating Piaget’s Theory
2.1. Contributions
2.1.1. It is the foundation of the present field of children’s cognitive
development.
2.1.2. He used careful observations and showed how children need to make
their experiences fit their schemas yet simultaneously adapt their
schemas to experience.
2.1.3. He revealed how cognitive change is likely to occur if the context is
structured to allow movement to the next higher level. This is gradual
and not sudden.
2.2. Criticisms
2.2.1. Some cognitive abilities can emerge earlier than Piaget suggested.
2.2.2. Some cognitive abilities can emerge later than Piaget suggested.
2.2.3. Cognitive development is not as stagelike as his theory suggests.
2.2.4. Piaget argued that training to think at the next stage is useless
because the child has not achieved the required maturation level, yet
findings demonstrate that training can be effective.
2.2.5. Culture and education exert stronger influences on children’s
development than Piaget suggested.
2.2.6. Neo-Piagetians give more emphasis to how children use attention,
memory, and strategies to process information.
Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development
Vygotsky, like Piaget, emphasized that children actively construct their knowledge
and understanding.
In Vygotsky’s theory, children are more often described as social creatures than in
Piaget’s theory.
Children’s thinking
interactions.
and
understanding
primarily
develops
through
social
Children’s cognitive development depends on the tools provided by society, and
their minds are shaped by the cultural context in which they live.
Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is Vygotsky’s term for the range of tasks
that are too difficult for the child to master alone but that can be learned with
guidance and assistance of adults or more skilled children.
•
The lower limit of the ZPD is the level of skill reached by the child working
independently.
•
The upper limit is the level of additional responsibility the child can accept
with the assistance of an able instructor.
Scaffolding is closely linked to the zone of proximal development; it refers to the
changing level of support that is provided to a child over the course of a teaching
session.
• Dialogue is an important tool of scaffolding in the zone of proximal
development.
Language and Thought:
• Language is social and is used for self-regulation, which is called private
speech (when children use language to guide their behavior) or inner speech
(when private speech goes “underground,” or is internalized as silent
speech).
• Vygotsky believed that children who use private speech are more socially
competent than those who don’t.
• Research has found that children who use private speech are more attentive
and improve their performance more than children who do not use private
speech.
Teaching Strategies
• Assess the child’s ZPD.
• Use the child’s ZPD in teaching.
• Use more skilled peers as teachers.
• Monitor and encourage children’s use of private speech.
• Place instruction in a meaningful context.
• Transform the classroom with Vygotskian ideas.
Evaluating Vygotsky’s Theory
• Vygotsky’s theory surfaced later than Piaget’s and may not be fully
evaluated.
• Vygotsky’s theory is a social constructivist approach; it emphasizes the
social contexts of learning and how social interaction influences the
construction of knowledge.
• The endpoint for Piaget is formal operations, whereas the endpoint for
Vygotsky may differ depending on the culture.
• Some critics point out that Vygotsky was not specific enough about agerelated changes.
• Some critics emphasize that Vygotsky did not adequately describe how
changes in socioemotional capabilities contribute to cognitive development.
• Some critics say Vygotsky overemphasized the role of language in thinking.
• Vygotsky’s emphasis on collaboration and guidance is also criticized.
COGNITIVE CHANGES IN ADULTHOOD
1. Piaget’s View
1.1. Young adults are more quantitatively advanced in their thinking in the sense
that they have more knowledge, and in adulthood knowledge increases in
specific areas depending on experience. However, adults and adolescents
do not differ qualitatively; that is, they do not differ in the type of reasoning
that they employ.
1.2. Many individuals do not reach the highest level of their formal operational
thinking until adulthood.
1.3. Some adults never reach the formal operational thinking stage.
2. Realistic and Pragmatic Thinking
2.1. Idealistic thinking decreases in early adulthood.
2.2. Young adults often switch from acquiring knowledge to applying knowledge
as they pursue success in their work.
3. Reflective and Relativistic Thinking
3.1. Perry views adult thinking as moving away from the absolute dualistic
thinking of adolescence.
3.2. Labouvie-Vief proposes that the increasing complexity of cultures has
generated a greater need for more reflective, complex thinking that takes
into account the changing nature of knowledge and challenges.
3.3. Labouvie-Vief emphasizes that the key aspects of cognitive development in
emerging adulthood include deciding on a particular world view, recognizing
that the world view is subjective, and understanding that diverse world
views should be acknowledged.
3.4. The highest levels of thinking are attained by only some and education is a
key factor.
4. Postformal Stage
Postformal thought is qualitatively different from Piaget’s formal operational
thought. It is:
4.1.
4.2.
4.3.
4.4.
Reflective, relativistic, and contextual
Provisional
Realistic
Open to emotions and subjective
Research suggests that adults engage in this type of thought more often than do
adolescents; however, critics argue that “post formal thought” is not
qualitatively more advanced than formal operational thought.
Wisdom is a possible candidate for what cognitive stages may characterize
middle and later adulthood.
References:
Cognitive Development from
http://gse.buffalo.edu/fas/shuell/cep564/lectures/cogdev.htm
Piaget's theory of cognitive development from
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piaget's_theory_of_cognitive_development
Citation: Huitt, W., & Hummel, J. (2003). Piaget's theory of cognitive
development. Educational Psychology Interactive. Valdosta, GA: Valdosta
State University. Retrieved [date] from
http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cogsys/piaget.html
Lev Vygotsky from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lev_Vygotsky
Vygotsky from http://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
Four Postformal Stages from
http://www.tiac.net/~commons/Four%20Postformal%20Stages.html