Constructs & Critical Perspectives: Piaget, Kohlberg & Vygotsky Study Notes, Material

Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget stressed that children actively construct their understanding of the world. The information does not simply enter their minds from the environment. As children grow, additional information is acquired and they adapt their thinking to include new ideas, as this improves their understanding of the world. Piaget believed that a child’s mind passes through a series of stages of thought from infancy to adolescence. Each stage is characterized by a distinct way of thinking and is age-related. For example:- The child during infancy, i.e. the first two years of life, experiences the world through senses and interactions with objects- through looking, hearing, touching, mouthing, and grasping. The newborn lives in the present. What is out of sight is out of mind, i.e. if you hide the toy in front of the child with which the child has been playing, the young infant would react as if nothing has happened, i.e. he/she will not search for the toy. 

Cognitive Development

Cognition means to perceive, comprehend and conceive or simply to know. Jean Piaget(1896-1980) a swiss child psychologist offers a rich framework for conceptualizing the development of children. Thinking and cognition through development to an adult. His theory of cognition is also called genetics epistemology. It focuses attention on the interaction between his biological inheritance and his environment for cognitive development.

In Piaget’s theory, all cognition takes place due to three processes- Assimilation, Accommodation, and Equilibration:-

1. Assimilation– means the fitting of new information into the previously established cognitive structure. (schemas)

2. Accommodation– means the alteration of existing cognitive structures (schemas)in response to new information.

3. Equilibration- means the optimal level of intellectual functioning taking place when there is a balance between assimilation and accommodation.

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Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget (1970) suggested that children throughout the world proceed through four stages:- 

1. Sensorimotor (birth- 2 years) – Infant explores the world by coordinating sensory experiences with physical actions.

2. Preoperational (2- 7 years)- Symbolic thought develops: object permanence is established: the child cannot coordinate different physical attributes of an object.

3. Concrete operational (7-11 years)- The child can reason logically about concrete events and classify objects into different sets able to perform reversible mental operations on representations of objects.

4. Formal operational (11-15 years)- The adolescent can apply logic more abstractly: hypothetical thinking develops.

Educational Implications of Piaget’s Theory

1. School curriculum should be constructed based on cognitive abilities and maturation. It should be an ability-based curriculum.

2. Teachers should follow the maxims of teaching-simple to complex, concrete to abstract, according to the development of cognitive abilities.

3. Piaget’s theory helps teachers to understand the cognitive development of children.

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Moral Development

Moral development refers to the development of moral behaviour and moral concepts. Moral concepts start developing when the child learns what is good and what is bad, what is right and what is wrong. Piaget’s Theory of Moral Development -four stages:

1. Anomy (Birth to 5 Years)

2. Heteronomy- Authority (5 to 8 years)

3. Heteronomy-Reciprocity (8 to 13 years)

4. Autonomy-Adolescence (13 to 18 years)

Kohlberg’s Theory of Moral Development

Kohlberg (1984) defines moral development as the development of an individual’s sense of justice. According to him, people pass through a series of stages in the evolution of their senses of justice and in the kind of reasoning they use to make a moral judgment about right and wrong. He proposed a three-level sequence of moral reasoning which includes six stages:-

1. Level-I: Pre-conventional Moral Reasoning

2. Level-II: Conventional Moral Reasoning

3. Level- III: Post-conventional Reasoning

Stages

1. Punishment-Obedience Orientation

2. Personal Reward Orientation 

3. Good boy- Good girl Orientation

4. Law and Order Orientation

5. Social Contract

6. Universal Ethical Principle

Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Perspective

According to Vygotsky’s sociocultural perspective – all mental activities first take place in the external social world. Children learn the culture of their community by ways of thinking and behaving.

VYGOTSKY’S THEORY OF INTERNALIZATION AND THE CONCEPT OF ZPD

1. Theory of Internalization- Vygotsky, believed that development begins in the environment, particularly the social environment and directs itself inward. The child sees other people doing different things at home, in the peer group, and school and subsequently learns to do it in the same way. For example:- Learning how to speak is an example.

2. The Zone of Potential/Proximal Development (ZPD)- refers to the difference between the actual development (as measured by a test of intelligence) and the level which a child can attain after guidance. 

3. Scaffolding- generally refers to the support given to students for learning and problem-solving.