Key Concepts of Piaget’s Theory of Development
Cognitive development refers to the changes that occur in an individual’s cognitive structures, abilities, and processes. Marcy Driscoll defines cognitive development as the transformation of the child’s undifferentiated, unspecialized cognitive abilities into the adult’s conceptual competence and problem-solving skill (Driscoll, 1994). However, what exactly changes with development? Piaget believed children’s schemes, or logical mental structures, change with age and are initially action-based (sensorimotor) and later move to a mental (operational) level. (Driscoll, 1994).
Further, Piaget believed the cognitive performance in children is directly associated with the cognitive development stage they are in. So, if a child were in the preoperational stage (age 2 to 6/7), he would not successfully be able to master tasks of a concrete operational stage (ages 6/7 to 11/12) child.
Piaget proposed this theory of childhood cognitive development in 1969. Since that time, there have been many criticisms of Piaget’s theory. Most notably, developmental psychologists debate whether children actually go through these four stages in the way that Piaget proposed, and further that not all children reach the formal operation stage. Despite this criticism, Piaget has had a major influence on all modern developmental psychologists. In addition to his proposed idea that children’s cognitive performance is directly related to the stage they are in, he proposed four major stages of development.
The Sensorimotor Period (birth to 2 years)
During the sensorimotor stage, infants and toddlers "think" with their eyes, ears, hands, and other sensorimotor equipment (http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kupsych/dennisk/Cog_Inf.htm). Piaget said that a child’s cognitive system is limited to motor reflexes at birth, but the child builds on these reflexes to develop more sophisticated procedures. They learn to generalize their activities to a wider range of situations and coordinate them into increasingly lengthy chains of behavior.
Preoperational Thought (2 to 6/7 years)
At this age, according to Piaget, children acquire representational skills in the area of mental imagery, and especially language. They are very self-oriented, and have an egocentric view; that is, preoperational children can use these representational skills only to view the world from their own perspective.
Concrete Operations (6/7 to 11/12 years)
As opposed to preoperational children, children in the concrete operations stage are able to take into account another person’s point of view and consider more than one perspective simultaneously, with their thought process being more logical, flexible, and organized than in early childhood. They can also represent transformations as well as static situations. Although they can understand concrete problems, Piaget would argue that they cannot yet contemplate or solve abstract problems, and that they are not yet able to consider all of the logically possible outcomes. Children at this stage would have the ability to pass conservation (numerical), classification, seriation, and spatial reasoning tasks.
Formal Operations (11/12 to adult)
Persons who reach the formal operation stage are capable of thinking logically and abstractly. They can also reason theoretically. Piaget considered this the ultimate stage of development, and stated that although the children would still have to revise their knowledge base, their way of thinking was as powerful as it would get.
How does cognitive change take place?
According to Piaget, development is driven by the process of equilibration. Equilibration encompasses assimilation (i.e., people transform incoming information so that it fits within their existing schemes or thought patterns) and accommodation (i.e, people adapt their schemes to include incoming information). Piaget suggested that equilibration takes place in three phases.
First, children are satisfied with their mode of thought and therefore are in a state of equilibrium. Then, they become aware of the shortcomings in their existing thinking and are dissatisfied (i.e., are in a state of disequilibration and experience cognitive conflict). Last, they adopt a more sophisticated mode of thought that eliminates the shortcomings of the old one (i.e., reach a more stable equilibrium) (http://www.psych.ualberta.ca/~mike/Pearl_Street/Dictionary/ contents/E/equilibration.html).
It is now thought that not every child reaches the formal operation stage. Developmental psychologists also debate whether children do go through the stages in the way that Piaget proposed. Whether Piaget was correct or not, however, it is safe to say that this theory of cognitive development has had a tremendous influence on all modern developmental psychologists.
More recent studies have cast some doubt on Piaget’s theory of homogeneous performance within a given stage. Instead, it is now believed that performance varies greatly within each stage and depends more on the acquisition and development of language, perception, decision rules, and real-world knowledge for each individual child.
Corresponding Instructional Strategies
Piaget himself did not design instructional strategies, but educators have interpreted Piaget’s theory to suggest broad instructional principles. If an educator is using a specific method, it is one that depends on his or her unique understanding of children’s thinking (Driscoll, 1994). According to Marcy Driscoll, there are three basic instructional principles on which Piagetian theorists generally agree. (Driscoll, 1994).
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Principle 1: The learning environment should support the activity of the child (i.e., an active, discovery-oriented environment) (Driscoll, 1994).
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Principle 2: Children’s interactions with their peers are an important source of cognitive development (i.e., peer teaching and social negotiation) (Driscoll, 1994).
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Principle 3: Adopt instructional strategies that make children aware of conflicts and inconsistencies in their thinking (i.e., conflict teaching and Socratic dialog) (Driscoll, 1994).
Specific instructional strategies include: modeling, coaching, scaffolding, fading, problem-based learning, authentic learning, anchored instruction, cognitive flexibility hypertexts, and object-based learning. Scaffolding is an effective way for the teach to present the information in such a way that the children can easily understand it and continue to build upon previously acquired knowledge.
Learning Goals
It is difficult for educators to apply Piaget’s theory because experiments at the elementary and secondary classroom levels are difficult and expensive. Also, instructors have a difficult time understanding how to implement and evaluate Piaget’s guidelines for education. However, the preschool level has allowed more room for experimentation, and wider acceptance due to less-defined curricular goals (Driscoll, 1994).
To have success with a constructivist classroom activity, it is important for the teacher to be a good facilitator. The teacher should encourage the students to make discoveries for themselves while conducting active dialog. For conceptual learning to occur, the teacher should seek to fuse the constructions of students and experts. By comparing and contrasting their constructions with experts’ constructions, the students gain insights into both and begin to reconceptualize their constructions in the direction of those of the experts (Zahorik, 1997).
References
Driscoll, Marcy Perkins (1994). Psychology of learning for instruction. Needham Heights, MA: Allyn & Bacon.
Flavell, John H. (1999). COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT: Children’s knowledge about the mind. Annual Review of Psychology, p. 21(16)
Garmston, Robert & Wellman, Bruce (1994, April). Insights from constructivist learning theory. Educational Leadership, 51 (7), 84-85.
Ellsworth, Peter C. & Sindt, Vicent G. (1994, February). Helping "aha" to happen: the contributions of Irving Sigel. Educational Leadership, 51 (5), 40-44.
Zahorik, John A. (1997, March). Encouraging - and challenging - students’ understandings, 54 (6), 30-32.
http://raven.cc.ukans.edu/~kupsych/dennisk/Cog_Inf.htm
http://www.piaget.org
http://www.psych.ualberta.ca/~mike/Pearl_Street/Dictionary/contents/E/equilibration.html