How do Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories of learning and development compare regarding the influences of social interactions in children's cognitive development?
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How do Piaget's and Vygotsky's theories of learning and development compare regarding the influences of social interactions in children's cognitive development?
The constructivist theory and the social constructivist theory are mothered by two of histories greatest researchers, Vygotsky and Piaget.
Piaget believed in the constructivist theory, the biology of cognition whilst Vygotsky takes a socio-historical point of view making social interaction the core of his theory.
Both Vygotsky and Piaget's theories on children's cognitive development are outlined and compared in order to establish how social interaction influences them.
Piaget's stage theory incorporates a balance between individual and social factors whilst Vygotsky centres his theory on outside influences.
Similarities in the two theories include the importance of the environment, the transformative nature of internalisation and the aim to reach goals in development.
The differences are explored in terms of knowledge coming from the outside in for Vygotsky and from the inside out for Piaget.
The nature of knowledge and the psychological instruments are subjects that differ in the two theories as is the role of language.
Seeking a rapprochement between the two theories as Glassman (1999) did provides, in my view, a way forward for understanding children's cognitive development.
My approach to understanding the role of social interaction in children's cognitive development is by using material from both theories in order to establish a non bias balance between the two.
Piaget (1896-1980) was the father of the constructivist theory. He sought to explain the origins and the development of cognition in biological terms. He named this genre of study genetic epistemology (Oates et al. 2005).
The constructivist theory, also known as the adaptation theory, involves three essential processes that participate in the child's cognitive development.
Firstly assimilation is the child's incorporation of new events into pre existing cognitive structures (schemas).
The child will use and apply these pre existing schemas to new situations as a means of exploring. Piaget named this method intrinsic motivation.
The child then needs to change their schemas in order to accept new information from the environment in a process called accommodation.
A balance needs s to be struck between the child and the environment, between assimilation and accommodation a balance he called equilibrium. It is for this reason that Piaget was a strong believer in the
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TMA 01 Essay
importance of letting children learn on their own. When infants acquire a social transmission that challenges their established schemes disequilibrium sets in. The child thus sets out in a pursuit for answers in order to reach a state of equilibrium again. An example of these processes is the child's reflex of sucking. Sucking is the schema by which he or she will use to discover new objects, this is assimilation, the attempt to fit new experiences into pre existing schemas. The infant will then come across objects that are either too big or do not taste nice and therefore accommodates his or her schemes (Passer & Smith 2004).
A key aspect in Piaget's theory is that there is a set order that intellectual development goes through hence his theory of developmental stages (Ginsbury, Opper, 1979). However, researchers have disrupted the stage theory by showing that children with special needs, autism or brain dysfunctions are not capable of going through Piaget's four stages of development (Open university, 2005).
Piaget's theory like all theories was criticised in many ways. Amongst those the most notorious was that he did not draw enough attention to social and cultural aspects. This in some views is a misunderstanding and a more ...
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A key aspect in Piaget's theory is that there is a set order that intellectual development goes through hence his theory of developmental stages (Ginsbury, Opper, 1979). However, researchers have disrupted the stage theory by showing that children with special needs, autism or brain dysfunctions are not capable of going through Piaget's four stages of development (Open university, 2005).
Piaget's theory like all theories was criticised in many ways. Amongst those the most notorious was that he did not draw enough attention to social and cultural aspects. This in some views is a misunderstanding and a more appropriate criticism is that his data may have been corrupted due to experimenting often on his own children. His research methods today would in some ways be classed as unethical.
Vygotsky (1896-1934) differed from Piaget in that his central focus was not that of nature but of nurture. The social and cultural surroundings were essential for cognitive development to take place in his theory.
Three themes unified Vygotsky's theory of social constructivism and they are: Culture, central role of language and the zone of proximal growth (Oates et al. 2005).
The first theme, as mentioned above, is the result that is created from the use of what Vygotsky called cultural tools. These tools are constructed and used to make up our ever changing cultures. The importance of culture is that it determines the curriculum that one needs to learn and the skills that are needed to be developed.
Vygotsky placed much importance on what he called "elementary and higher mental functions". The latter was only achievable thanks to social processes.
"The very mechanism underlying higher mental functions is a copy from social interaction; all higher mental functions are internalised social relationships." (Vygotsky, 1988, p74)
Language, a psychological cultural tool, is acquired through social processes and is what permits the process of thought.
The zone of proximal development (ZPD) is "the distance between the actual development level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential as determined through problem solving under adult guidance or in collaboration with more capable peers." (Vygoltsky, 1978).
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TMA 01 Essay
Child peers and adults were, as Vygotsky believed, responsible for donating their superior knowledge to the younger generation (Jarvis, C. 2001)
A crtisism of Vygotsky's theory by Crain (2000)is that it may exert too much pressure on the child's future attainments thus denying their infancy needs (Oates et al. 2005).
Looking at the key factors in both the constructivist and social constructivist theory they are not as far opposites as they may initially seem.
Both place importance on social factors and the environment.
Vygotsky is easy to apply this similarity to as social and environmental factors are central to his theory. However Piaget is often misunderstood with regards to this.
It is important to categorise his statements in function with what viewpoint he was speaking from. As an epistemologist he attempted to explain not how the child develops but how knowledge develops.
When speaking from a psychologist viewpoint, which is what should be focused on, Piaget gave due respect to the role of social and cultural factors in cognitive development (Stern, 1990).
Extract of his early work sound very much like Vygotsky, "social life is a necessary condition for the development of logic" (p.120), "the progress of reason is due to social mechanism" (Piaget 1928/1995, p199).
A similarity both theorists share is that the process of internalisation is not a mere replication of material from the environment but a transformative process (Driscoll, 1994). This is well seen in Piaget's constructivist view point and in his stage theory, where different qualitative structures of cognition are mapped out in the four stages.
The attainment of certain levels in development is seen as an aim in the two theories. In Piaget's developmental theory the goal is to reach and complete each stage at a time . Vygotsky saw reaching the higher mental functions as a goal of development.
Both placed importance of egocentric speech (Ginsbury, 1979).
The main debate between the two theories is whilst they both recognize that humans are biological organism that live in a physical environment Vygotsky dispute that the explanation for cognitive development lies within social rather than biological factors.
Piaget's model of development is often seen as operating from the inside out whereas Vygotsky's model is seen to work from the outside in (Cole, 1996).
An example of this in their theories is that Piaget believed that the transition of language is from the individual to social, cognitive changes precede linguistic progressions. Vygotsky theorises language is from the social to the individual, language liberates the child's freedom of thought and hence develops cognitive development.
Piaget believes that innate factors drive development whereas for Vygotsky knowledge comes from the outside.
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In Piaget's stage theory development occurs in predetermined stages suggesting that there is an endpoint at around the age of 15. In contrast Vygotsky argued that it is an on going process that starts at birth and continues until death and is too complex to be reduced into stages (Driscoll, 1994 & Hausfather, 1996).
In Piaget's observation of egocentric speech that occurs in the pre-operational stage, his view was that once this stage was accomplished this behaviour disappeared. Vygotsky, who believed that thought and language came hand in hand, was not of the same opinion. He believed that the discontinuation of egocentrism was simply due to the transition from social speech to internalised thoughts (Driscoll, 1994).
Vygotsky places child peers and adults in an active teaching role whilst disregarding the possibility that the child plays the main part in constructing his or her learning. He firmly believed that a child could not develop as they do without absorbing information from others and the surrounding environment (Flanagan, 2001). Piaget, standing by his biological knowledge, preserved his belief that the child is an organism that is naturally interested in the environment and is curious about his or her abilities (Jarvis, C. 2001).
A contrast in their theories leading off the previous point is that infants are only able to learn one stage at a time. Piaget suggested that the construction of knowledge came about due to the child's actions on the world, where as Vygotsky saw the process as smooth and gradual.
An example of Piaget's theory being challenged is that of conservation. Donaldson (1978) adjusted Piaget's experiment on conservation with the hypothesis that children could attain understanding of conservation at an earlier stage. She did this by adjusting the method previously employed and gave a reason to the child for altering the presentation of the task thus the task "making sense" to the child. This proved to be successful in proving that children can grasp conservation before the time Piaget had suggested.
Vygotsky stated his conflicting view on the nature of knowledge, "In contrast to Piaget, we hypothesize that development does not proceed towards socialisation, but towards the conversion of social relations into mental functions" (Vygotsky, 1981).
Psychological instruments, according to Piaget are structural adaptations to experience whereas Vygotsky saw them as the content of cultural representations (Passer and Smith, 2004).
Language being one of the psychological tools has a contrasting role in the two theories.
Vygotsky sees this tool as a scientific concept given to children whereas for Piaget grasping these scientific concepts is a progressive construction that is absorbed in stages and reasoning is gradually formed to fit in with what society considers to be correct.
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TMA 01 Essay
The role of social interaction in Piaget's and Vygotsky's theory is clearly important. They should not be categorised, as they often are, as Piaget emphasising the importance of the individual and Vygotsky the social.
Vygotsky who centred his theory on social aspects believed that knowledge came from the outside and not an innate factor as Piaget believed it to be. The interaction with adults was crucial for cultural tools to be passed through and hence permit development. The child's cognitive development was, in the social constructivist view, the result of social interaction.
Whilst Piaget did not disregard the importance of the environment he placed much of the responsibility for learning and developing on the individual itself. Knowledge came from the inside. He supported this by his universal theory of stages where assimilation, intrinsic motivation and accommodation became more complex as the stages were accomplished. The stage theory was challenged by many and rejected by Vygotsky. He theorised that leaning was progressive, and in contrast to Piaget, believed that development could be accelerated through instruction (Flanagan, 1999).
As stated earlier Piaget rarely spoke from a psychologist point of view and therefore perhaps Piaget and Vygotsky are not as opposite as they are thought to be. They may both be attempting to resolve the same matter but from different points of view.
Thus I believe the natural laws of intellectual development integrated with the impact of social processes and culture may give a highly productive account of the role of social interaction in children's cognitive development.
Word count 1957
Mia Lherpiniere
Personal ID - X7374356
TMA 01 Essay
References
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