Everything

Question 1

What is the basis of cognitive development?

Answer 1

Theory describes the development of all mental processes, including thinking, reasoning and understanding of world
Though development occurs throughout life, psychologists are concerned with cognitive development in childhood
Piaget’s theory that children do not know less than adults, but they think in an entirely different way to adults

Question 2

What is a schema?

Answer 2

A mental framework of beliefs and experiences that influence cognitive processing.
As children develop, they construct more detailed/complex mental representations of the world through schemas.
Adults have schemas of themselves, other obkects, physical actions and abstract ideas like morality / justice
Piaget suggested that children are born with a small number of schemas, allowing them to just interact with people.
In infancy, children develop new schemas, including the schema storing information about themselves

Question 3

Describe our motivation to learn

Answer 3

We are motivated to learn when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new.
This leads to the unpleasent sensation of disequilibrium.
To escape disequilibrium, we have to adapt to a new situation by exploring and learning what we need to know.
In the process of reaching equilibrium, known as equilibration, individuals achieve a sense of balance with environment
The processing of learning and adapting to a new environment can be split into assimilation and accommodation

Question 4

What is Assimilation?

Answer 4

Refers to incorporating new information to an existing schema.
Understanding of new experiences/achievement of equilibrium occurs when we add information into existing schemas.
E.g. a child with a dog may adapt to existence of different dog breeds by incorporating it into the existing dog scema

Question 5

What is Accommodation

Answer 5

Refers to learning as a response to dramatically new experiences
Child has to adapt to these new situations by radically changing existing schemas or forming new schemas.
E.g a child may initially view cats as being part of their dog schema, due to some physical similarities, however they may accommodate to the existence of cats as a separate species by forming a new schema for cats

Question 6

Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory: Individual Mental Representations

Answer 6

Piaget believed children learn by forming their own mental representations of the world.
He suggests children with similar lived experiences may form quite individual representations.
Howe et al (1992) tested children aged 9-12, in groups of 4, in their understanding of objects moving down a slope.
He found that children had increased knowledge and understanding of topic when discussing it in a group with peers.
However, they did not have same conclusions/same facts understood; they formed personal mental representations

Question 7

Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory: Education Application

Answer 7

Piaget’s theory of children learning by actively exploring their environment has had an impact of classroom teaching.
The silent rows of the 1960’s have been replaced with activity-oriented classrooms
Children now actively engage in tasks that allow them to construct their own understanding of curriculum
In early years, children may physically take control of learning, they may investigate physical properties of sand
In higher level, students may read up material independently, focusing lesson time on evaluation

Question 8

Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory: Overplayed importance of equilibration

Answer 8

Piaget saw learning as a motivated process, in which children learn in order to equilibrate
Idea that equilibration would remove children from unpleasant experience of disequilibrium
However, children vary in their intellectual curiousity, so Piaget overestimated how motivated children are to learn
Sample of children not fully representative; clever, middleclass children from nursery attached to his university

Question 9

Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory: Role of Culture in Learning

Answer 9

Piaget only tested children of a similar background to him, educated, middle-class European children, reducing validity.
Such children may be more highly motivated than children from less educated backgrounds and from different cultures.
Therefore, the way this group of children acquired knowledge may be different.
Different cultures may feel differently towards education and place value on abilities that may be more useful; abstract and formal operation thinking may be much less common in these other cultural groups.

Question 10

Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory: Underplayed Role of Others in Learning

Answer 10

Piaget saw other people, adults and peers, as being important sources of information during discovery learning.
Adults are especially important as they set up situations in which discovery learning can take place.
Despite this, Piaget believed that learning is primarily focused with what happens in the mind of the individual.
Other research findings, by Vygotsky especially, suggest that other people are absolutely central to the learning process.

Question 11

Evaluation of Piaget’s Theory: Underplayed importance of language.

Answer 11

To Piaget, language was just a cognitive ability that developed in line with other abilities.
However, other theorists have placed a lot more importance on language development.
Unlike Piaget, Vygotsky believed that language was crucial to a child’s cognitive development.
He suggested learning was a social process - language is the pathway in which “expert” conveys info to the learner.

Question 12

What is equilibrium?

Answer 12

A mental balance between what is already known and incoming information

Question 13

What is central tendency in Psychology?

Answer 13

Central Tendency is a statistic that identifies a single value as a representative of the entire distribution of data.

Question 14

What 3 measures of Central Tendency are used?

Answer 14

The mean, median and mode

Question 15

How is population defined?

Answer 15

The complete group to be studied

Question 16

Why is central tendency useful in psychology?

Answer 16

A measure can indicate a typical score and can let a research know what is most likely going to happen or has the highest probability of occurring

Question 17

What does a symmetrical distribution mean?

Answer 17

The mean, median and mode are the same value

Question 18

What are Measures of Dispersion?

Answer 18

Measures of Dispersion give you an indication of the spread of your data; the range and standard deviation are two key examples.

Question 19

What is the standard deviation?

Answer 19

The standard deviation is a measure which shows to what extend the values in a data set devite from the mean. It is calculated using all of the values, and so is arguably more representative than the range.

Question 20

Positives and Negatives of the Standard Deviation

Answer 20

Positives: Data is taken into account
Negatives: More complex, less helpful in understanding data that is not normally distributed

Question 21

What are Piaget’s 4 stages of development and how long does each last?

Answer 21

Sensorimotor stage (0-2 years)
Pre-operational stage (2-7 years)
Stage of Concrete Operations (7-11 years)
Stage of Formal Operations (11+ years)

Question 22

What does Piaget say about the Sensorimotor stage?

Answer 22

Piaget suggests a baby’s early focus is on physical sensations and developing basic physical coördination.
Children learn by trial and error that they can move objects with their body in certain ways, eventually moving other objects
By around 8 months, the child is capable of understanding the concept of object permanence

Question 23

What is Object Permanence?

Answer 23

This concept refers to the ability of understanding that an object still exists when it passes out of the visual field
Piaget found that children below 8 months would turn their attention away from an object once it was out of sight
However, from around 8 months, child would continue to look for it -> understood objects still exist though out of view

Question 24

What does Piaget say about Pre-operational stage?

Answer 24

Conservation and number / liquid conversation
Egocentrism
Class inclusion

Question 25

What does conservation mean in Piaget's pre-operational stage?

Answer 25

Conservation refers to the ability to understand that the quantity remains the same even when the appearance of the object changes Piaget used number and liquid conservation tasks to show how younger, pre-operational children struggled to conserve

Question 26

What was the Number Conservation task?

Answer 26

Piaget placed two identical rows of counters side by side and even young children However, when counters in one of the rows were pushed closer together, pre-operational children struggled to conserve and said there were fewer counters -> failed to understand quantity of counters reamined despite appearance change

Question 27

What was the Liquid Conservation task?

Answer 27

When two containers are placed side by side with same height contents, most children will say they had the same volume However, if liquid is poured into a taller, thinner vessel, younger children believed there to be more liquid in tall vessel. Shows they failed to understand that the volume of the liquid remained the same, despite the change in appearance.

Question 28

What is Egocentrism?

Answer 28

This refers to the child's tendency to only be able to see the world from their point of view; includes both objects/arguments Piaget and Inhelder (1956) used a three mountains task to demonstrate egocentrism in this stage Children shown three model mountains and a doll was later placed, facing the scene from a different angle to the child. Child was asked to choose what the doll would likely see from a range of pictures Found pre-operational children had difficulty and often chose pictures that matched the scene from their point of view

Question 28

What is Egocentrism?

Answer 28

This refers to the child's tendency to only be able to see the world from their point of view; includes both objects/arguments Piaget and Inhelder (1956) used a three mountains task to demonstrate egocentrism in this stage Children shown three model mountains and a doll was later placed, facing the scene from a different angle to the child. Child was asked to choose what the doll would likely see from a range of pictures Found pre-operational children had difficulty and often chose pictures that matched the scene from their point of view

Question 29

What is Class Inclusion?

Answer 29

Refers to advanced classification skill, where we recognise objects fall into categories as well as subsets of larger classes. Most pre-operational children can classify different dog breeds as being in the category of "Dogs," Found children under 7 struggled when shown 5 dogs and 2 cats and were asked whether there were more dogs than animals Younger children tended to say tehre were more dogs -> they cannot see dogs as members of both dog and animal classes.

Question 30

What was the Stage of Concrete Operations (7-11 years)

Answer 30

Piaget found from around age of 7, most children can conserve and perform better on egocentrism/class inclusion tasks. While children have better reasoning ability (operations), they can be applied only to physical objects in child's presence. Children at this stage still struggle to reason about abstract ideas or imagine objects/situations they cannot see. Those more advanced abilities appear in the final stage of formal operations.

Question 31

What was the Stage of Formal Operations (11 years+)

Answer 31

Around 11, children capable of formal reasoning, able to focus on form of an argument and not distracted by its content. Formal reasoning tested by means of syllogism (deductive reasoning) Statement by Smith et al (1998) -> "All yellow cats have 2 heads. I have a yellow cat, how many heads does it have?" = 2 Piaget found that younger children became distracted by content and answered that cats do not really have 2 heads Suggests once children can reason formally, they are capable of scientific reasoning and can appreciate abstract ideas.

Question 32

Evaluation of developmental stages: Unreliable questioning for conservation

Answer 32

Idea that children in Piaget's study may have been influenced by seeing experimenter change appearance of counters The children may have believed they were meant to think the quantity had changed, causing demand characteristics Donaldson et al (1974) set up a similar conservation experiment in which counters appeared to be moved by accident In a control condition, they replicated Piaget's task with 4 6-year olds and found most children answered incorrectly In experimental condition, a 'naughty teddy' knocked. counters together-> 62% answered counters were same as before Suggests children aged 4-6 could conserve, as long as they weren't put off by their questioning -> opposes Piaget

Question 33

Evaluation for developmental stages: Opposing evidence for class inclusion

Answer 33

Piaget concluded pre-operationalised children could not understand an object can be a member of two classes at the same time. However, study by Siegler et al (2006) provided evidence that children could understand class inclusion They tested 100 Slovenian 5-year-olds, who did 3 sessions of 10 class-inclusion tasks, and given feedback after session One group were told there must be more animals than dogs as there were nine animals but only six dogs A different group told there must be more animals as dogs were subset of animals -> true explanation of class inclusion Found the scores across the three sessions improved more for the second group, suggesting that they had a real understanding of class inclusion -> opposes Piaget's notion that children under 7 couldn't understand class inclusion

Question 34

Evaluation for developmental stages: ability to decentre

Answer 34

Piaget believed that the ability of young children to decentre, and see multiple viewpoints, increased gradually with age However, study by Hughes (1975) suggests that Piaget underestimated younger children's ability to decentre Used a model with two walls, three dolls, a boy and a police officer (similar to three mountains task) Once familiarised with task, kids aged 3 ½ could position boy doll where police officer could not 'see' him 90% of time Four year olds could do this 90% of the time when there were two police officers to hide from -> loss of egocentric

Question 35

Evaluation of developmental stages: Abilities both over and underestimated

Answer 35

Piaget may have underestimated abilities of younger children and overestimated the abilities of adolescents Modern studies show with right kind of adult help, pre operational children can understand conservation/class inclusion Later studies of egocentrism found pre-operational children to be less egocentric than suggested by three mountains Piaget's observations of age differences are not due to innate developmental issue but are more related to training With the right kind of help, understanding of conservation and class inclusion can develop Suggests suitable training is important and that developmental patterns are not as fixed as Piaget suggested

Question 36

Evaluation of developmental stages: Challenges to domain-general development

Answer 36

Domain-general learning suggest that humans are born with mechanisms in the brain that exist to support and guide learning on a broad level, regardless of the type of information being learned Piaget believed that intellectual development is a single process, in which all aspects of cognition develop together Research with children with autistic spectrum disorder (ASD) suggests that different abilities may develop separately Children with Asperger syndrome are very egocentric but develop normal reasoning/language Suggests Piaget's theory may need to be adapted to the fact children learn different skills (different domains) differently