Piaget's Theory (AQA A Level Psychology)

Piaget's theory of cognitive development

• Piaget’s theory of cognitive development (1920s-1980s) is based on the idea that children’s thinking and reasoning are qualitatively different to that of an adult

• Piaget was interested in studying child development in terms of how a child’s thinking progresses according to their age i.e. it is a maturational theory

• Piaget (who originally trained as a zoologist) observed the ways in which his children played at home as well as observing childrens’ games on the streets of his home town in Switzerland

• Piaget was working at the Binet Institute (a centre in which childrens’ intelligence was tested) when he became interested in the errors children made, rather than their correct answers

• Piaget believed that children are continuously exploring their environment, almost performing experiments to test what they discover every day (hence, discovery learning): he suggested that children are ‘little scientists’

• Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is an example of constructivism i.e. children learn via action and reflection; they then build on these learning blocks to construct schemas which in turn help them to negotiate their world

• Piaget argued that children develop cognitions according to genetic epistemology i.e. this drive to explore and learn is innate and runs according to a nature-derived ‘timetable’ 

Children are hard-wired to explore their environment, according to Piaget.

Piaget's schema theory

• Piaget’s schema theory is the basis on which cognitive development is built: schemas are mental representations of the world, of other people as well as the self, of events, situations, ideas etc.

• The first schema that a child constructs, according to Piaget, is the body schema i.e. this is me/this is not me, as the child begins to understand that they are separate from other aspects of their environment

• As the child gets older their schemas become more complex and sophisticated and are able to encompass not only concrete objects (e.g. ‘cat’, ‘house’) but also abstract concepts (e.g. ‘freedom’, ‘loneliness’)

• The process by which schemas are compiled and added to is known as assimilation e.g. a young child knows that birds can fly, they eat worms, they visit the back garden

• The state of equilibrium is when a child’s schema is balanced; the information in the schema makes sense and helps the child to understand their world

• Disequilibrium occurs when a child encounters some new information which does not fit in with an existing schema, for example, a child sees a penguin for the first time and is told that the penguin is a bird

• Referring to the above example, the child must accommodate this new information into their ‘bird’ schema to restore equilibrium e.g. some birds can’t fly in the air, some birds eat fish, some birds live in Antarctica so can’t visit the back garden!

Penguins: who knew they were a potential source of disequilibrium?

Research which investigates Piaget’s theory

• Nelson et al. (1986) - Preschool children have developed well-organised schemas about  familiar events constructed from their own experience and use these schemas to help them plan, reflect and enact behaviours/ideas

• Howe et al. (1992) - Children working together to understand the motion of objects down a slope formed different conclusions which supports Piaget’s ideas about individual discovery learning

• Dasen (2017) researched children’s cognitive development in the Cote d’Ivoire and found that abstract reasoning is achieved via symbols and inductive reasoning rather than the analytical, deductive reasoning used in the West

Evaluation of Piaget’s theory

Strengths

• Piaget’s theory was instrumental in encouraging discovery learning within educational settings i.e. children need to explore and discover for themselves rather than being told what to think by adults

• Piaget's theory was ground-breaking: children’s cognitive development had previously been overlooked but his ideas prompted a great deal of research in the field, providing hugely valuable insight into children’s thinking

Weaknesses

• Piaget’s theory does not consider the role of language in a child's cognitive development which means that it is an incomplete explanation of the different aspects of developing cognition

• Piagets’ theory was not initially supported by empirical evidence : his ideas were formed using a biased sample of Swiss children and anecdotal evidence i.e. there is low reliability

Link to Issues & Debates:

Piaget’s theory does not account for cultural differences, it is an ethnocentric explanation, based on Piaget’s limited experience of Swiss children (predominantly Caucasian). Dasen’s (2017) research (cited above) highlights the need for cultural relativism to be applied to cognitive development research, rather than assuming a universal approach to the ways in which children learn.