Piaget' theories. Include the work of Vygotsky, Bruner, Donaldson and Rogoff to discuss and analyse Piaget's theories

Authors Avatar
Write a detailed 1,500 word critique of Piaget' theories. Include the work of Vygotsky, Bruner, Donaldson and Rogoff to discuss and analyse Piaget's theories

Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was a constructivist theorist. He saw children as constructing their own world, playing an active part in their own development. Piaget's insight opened up a new window into the inner working of the mind and as a result he carried out some remarkable studies on children that had a powerful influence on theories of child thought. This essay is going to explain the main features and principles of the Piagetian theory and then provide criticism against this theory.

Cognitive development refers to way in which a person's style of thinking changes with age. Piaget argued that cognitive development is based on the development of schemas. This refers to a psychological structure representing all of a person's knowledge of actions or objects. To perform a new skill which the person has no schema, they have to work from previous skills that they have. This is called assimilation, where they have pulled previous schemas together then adapted and changed them to fit their task through accommodation. Piaget theorised that children's thinking goes through changes at each of four stages (sensory, motor, concrete operations and formal operations) of development until they can think and reason as an adult. The stages represent qualitatively different ways of thinking, are universal, and children go through each stage in the same order. According to Piaget each stage must be completed before they can move into the next one and involving increasing levels of organisation and increasingly logical underlying structures. Piaget stated that the 'lower stages never disappear; they become integrated into the new stage (hierarchic integration) (Inhelder and Piaget, 1958). Children themselves, through their actions on the environment, interacting with there biologically - determined level of maturation, bring about the cognitive changes, which result in adult thinking.

The stages theory is open to criticism as they are too rigid and neglects individual differences such as memory span, motivation etc. Piaget also underestimated the age at which children could do things. This maybe due to his failure to distinguish between competence and performance. Piaget's studies tested performance and then he assumed that a child who failed simply lacked the underlying cognitive structures that he believed were needed to succeed on that task. Subsequent research suggests that a child may have these competencies earlier than Piaget suggested. However, simply to focus on age limits is to miss the central point of Piaget's theory that universal, qualitative, biologically regulated cognitive changes occur during development. This is supported by cross-cultural research that has replicated Piaget's findings (Smith et al, 1998).
Join now!


Another criticism relates to the concept of biological maturation or 'readiness'. If the development of cognitive structures is related to maturity, then practice should not improve performance. In other words, if a person is not biologically ready to move on to the next stage then no amount of practice should get them there. However, there is evidence to suggest that practice can make a difference (Danner and Day 1977).

A third criticism relates to the role of language and social factors. Piaget did not feel that language influenced cognitive development. To incorporate these two elements researchers have ...

This is a preview of the whole essay