cognition and development Flashcards
what are the key points of piagets theory of cog development
- argues that cog develops due to active discovery
- child as scientist
- schema is developed and development takes place in stages
- do not know less than adults but simply think in an entirely different way
- argues that discovery learning will occur when child is ready/ matured
what is the schema and how does it work in piagets theory
- mental framework of beliefs and expectations that influence cognitive processing , developed from experience
- piaget says children are born with small number of schema to allow them to interact with the world
- cog development involves construction of progressively more detailed schema for people, objects and physical actions as well as feelings
what is equilibration and what part does it play in piagets theory
- motivation to learn
-the process of cog balancing when encountering new information - once assimilation or accomodation has taken place when dealing with new info
- done to escape disequilibrium when adapting to a new situation
what two processes are how learning occurs in piagets theory of cog development and how do they work
ASSIMILATION - process of fitting new experiences into existing schemas without making any change to it
- eg a child with a dog can adapt to the existence of other breeds of dig by assimilating into the dog schema
ACCOMODATION- takes place in response to dramatically new experiences
- process of radically changing current schema or forming new one
- due to new conflicting info creates disequilibrium
- eg child may at first think dogs and cats are same due to 4 legs and a tail - but then recognise new category
what is a strength of piagets theory of cog development
REAL WORLD APP
- has been applied in teaching
- piagets idea of children actively learning by exploring environment has changed classroom teaching
- since his ideas became popular in 1960s classroom teaching has changed
- from children sat silently in rows copying from board to actively orientated classrooms where kids engage in tasks
- construct own understandings
- eg looking at physical differences between water and sand
- shows how piaget has inspired approaches that may facilitate development of individual mental representations of the world
what are two weaknesses of piagets theory of cog development
UNDERESTIMATES ROLE OF OTHERS
-piaget saw others as useful as sources of info
- saw learning itself as an individual process
- contrasts other theories in which learning is seen as a more social process, supported by knowledgeable people like vygotskys theory
-strong evidence to support idea that learning is enhanced by others and interaction
- fails to consider alternative explanations
- alternative theories may explain better or should at least be considered
- piagets theory may be incomplete explanation as there is little emphasis on others
NOT SCIENTIFIC
- although his work has been used within education so therefore has wider application and external validity
- methods and research is not scientific
- sample that he used was from a nursery at the university
- these children were all of similar social class and intelligence
- not generalisable to others- social class, culture/ ethnicity, intelligence
- found that there may be more individual differences that can occur due to different cog abilities
what is the key point of piagets stages of intellectual development
children develop skills when they are mentally ready to do so
what are the 4 stages of piagets stages and what are the ages for each
- sensorimotor stage (0-2years)
- pre operational stage (2-7years)
-stage of concrete operations (7-11) - stage of formal operations (11+)
what are the key terms, description, and any studies for the sensorimotor stage
- object permanence- ability to realise that an object still exists when it passes out of visual field (0-8 months can not understand)
- babys early focus is on physical sensations
- knowledge consist of basic motor movement
- 8 months- begins to understand object permanence
- in order to have this, child needs to hold simple mental representations of objects
- piaget took toy from child and put under blanket
- if child searched for it suggested object permanence
what are the key terms, description, and any studies for the pre operational stage
- CONSERVATION- ability to distinguish between reality and appearance
-EGOCENTRISM- seeing things from own view and being unaware of other peoples perspectives - CLASS INCLUSION- advanced classifacation skill learning that classifacations have subsets
- child is mobile and can use language at age of 2
- find it difficult to look from another POV
- can not see some classifacations
- 2 containers with liquid of same amount but dfferent shapes - kids before this stage would not recognise same amount
- three mountain task - doll placed other side and child asked what doll would see
- class inclusion- are there more dogs or animals - would say more dogs- do not recognise they are included in animals
what are the key terms, description, and any studies for the stage of concrete operations
- operations - ability to accurately imagine the consequences of something happening witthout it actually happening
- most children can conserve and perform better on egocentric tasks and class inclusion
- only concrete operations - can only be applied to physical objects in childs prescence
- still struggle with absract ideas
what are the key terms, description, and any studies for the stage of formal operations
- operations - ability to now imagine consequences of even abstract ideas
- capable of formal reasoning
- can focus on formal reasoning
- pendulum tasks
what are the three weaknesses if piagets stages of intellectual development
ISSUES WITH CONSERVATION RESEARCH
- research into this was flawed
- Children were influenced by seeing the experimental change the counters
- They believed they were meant to agree that the quantity had changed
- Another test was set up where naughty Teddy knocked the counters instead and it was found that 62% of six-year-olds answered successfully
- this shows they could conserve and shows that the first study did not measure what it intended to measure
- Internal validity also shows was wrong about age at which conservation happens
LACK OF SUPPORT FOR EGOCENTRISM
-Hughes tested ability of children to see a situation from two viewpoints by using a model with walls two police dolls and another doll
- Children were asked to move the doll somewhere where one police officer could not see
- Found that as young as 3 1/2 years old were able to position the in the right place
-means that when tested with a scenario that makes more sense children could imagine other perspective much earlier than Piaget expected
- piaget underestimated abilities of younger children and the stages are incorrect
CULTURAL BIAS
- Piaget was a middle-class European who used children from European families
Developed his theory off of child families who valued academic abilities and a group that were from very similar backgrounds
Limits ability to generalise
Many tasks used required being familiar with certain western problems solving skills
Research has shown cognitive development is influenced by cultural factors such as schooling language social interactions which are different in different cultures
His research is an imposed etic
what is the main theme of
vygotskyx theory of cognitive development
cog development is a social process of learning from more experienced others
it includes ZPD and scaffolding
what did vygotsky say about cultural differences in cognitive abilities
- reasoning abilities are required from the more knowledgeable others
Means that there may be cultural differences in cognitive development
Children will pick up mental tools that will be most important for life with physical social and work environment in their culture
For example and eye coordination to hunt with a bow
Unlike Piaget who doesn’t take into account
what is the zone of proximal development
The gap between between what a child can do on their own and what they can achieve with guidance from expert
Believed that children learn learn more facts via social interaction and acquire more advanced reasoning ability
Believed higher mental functions could only be acquired through interaction with more knowledgeable others
what is scaffolding
The process of helping a learner cross zone of proximal development and advance as much as they can on the stage of development they are at level of help declines as the learner crosses the CPD
Five stages recruitment breaking task into manageable steps encouragement motivation demonstration
what are MKO’s
More knowledgeable others
Child learns through problem-solving experiences with someone else
what are the two strengths of Vygoskys theory of cognitive development
REAL WORLD APP
has practical application in education
Idea that children learn faster with scaffolding has raised expectations of what they can achieve
Social interaction is encouraged through tutoring an individual assistance from teachers used to scaffold children through ZPD
Evidence to suggest these are effective review of teaching assistance found that they were very effective and improving the rate of learning
EMPHASIS ON SOCIAL AND CULTURAL DIFFERENCES
theory unlike piagets highlights the social and cultural differences in cognitive development
Has more cultural relativism accounting for differences in development based on cultural norms values and tools
This makes it more universally applicable
what is the weakness
of vygotskys theory of cognitive development
LITTLE RESEARCH SUPPORT
lacks measurable concepts making it difficult to test an operationalise
whilst concepts like scaffolding are useful
Did not clearly define how to measure these e.g. how much scaffolding is optimal for learning
Makes it more difficult to apply consistently in both research and education
Unlike piaget who proposed distinct developmental stages
Makes it harder to test and compare age groups
what are they key aspects of baillargeons theory
-disputes piagets theory that babies less than 8-9 months have no understanding of the physical world
-VOE developed to investgate infant understanding of the world arguing that it is innate
- if children understand the physical world , they will expect certain events to happen in a situation
- if they do not occur, child will react
what is the procedure and findings of the violation of expectation research
procedure
- showed 24 babies 5-6 months old a tall and short rabbit passing behind a screen with a window
- familiarisation even- both passed behind the wall disappearing
- expected event- small rabbit does not appear in window due to height
- unexpected event- large rabbit does not appear in window
- a baby with object permanance should show surprise
findings
- babies looked longer at unexpected event
- interpreted as being more surprised at this
- demonstrated that children younger than 8 months - some as young as 3 months- demonstrated object permenance
what was baillrgeons alternative explanation for piagets theory of a lack of understanding of the physical world in younger children
- that it was due to something different for example failure to look for a hidden product due to lack of motor skills or getting easily distracted
what is the theory of physical reasoning system
- proposed children are born with PRS
- have primitive awareness of world becoming more sophisticated from experience
- impossible event captured attention as PRS redies them to take notice of events that may develop their understanding
