Compare and contrast piaget and vygotsky essay PDF

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Student ID: 33482705 Compare and contrast the approaches of Piaget and Vygotsky. What aspects of their theories have best stood the test of time? Piaget took an interest in studying what children’s thought processes were and why their responses changed with age. His constructivist approach comes from his intrigue with children’s mistakes and thought processes, noticing that those of similar age ranges were often making the same mental errors. This, as a result, led to him believing that there were developmental steps within intellectual growth. Intelligence is an biological process (Piaget 1952). Something that he described to be a basic function that allowed adaptation to the environment, for example, newborns enter the world unfamiliar, they have few techniques to adapt to it other than their senses and reflexes. Whereas, Vygotsky took on the view that intelligence is held by the group, not the individual. Something that is linked to the language system and other tools of thinking the group had developed overtime and attempting to master these intellectual tools that the culture provides (Case, 1998). It could be said that Vygotsky’s view on intelligence is not an aspect that stood the test of time as we are now aware that some understanding is individually constructed as Piaget suggested. It does not all come down to the basis of the group. Piaget took on the view that despite the fact that newborns enter the world unfamiliar, they are active agents within their own cognitive development, they learn about the world via observation, investigation and experimentation. In other words, they create schemas. These are packages of ideas and information that we develop through experience. A form of mental framework that allows us to interpret our experiences to something that may be novel to us. For example, babies are born with simple motor schema for innate behaviours such as sucking and grasping (Piaget 1952). As we get older, our schemas become more complex and sophisticated, eventually children will learn to form concepts such as symbolic schemas, where a child uses internal mental symbols like images and words to represent certain parts of experience. For example, carrying a mental model of how a funny dance was done. Piaget adopted an interactionist approach to the nature-nurture debate. Therefore, according to Piaget intelligence develops using our schemas as well as innate intellectual functions called Organization and Adaptation (Piaget 1952). Organisation is the concept in which children combine their existing schemas into a more complex one. Reducing clutter and giving them logically ordered ideas which they can base their actions upon. Adaptation, on the other hand, means adjusting to the demands of the environment, this is done via Assimilation and Accommodation. Assimilation is the interpretation of new experiences in terms of our schemas, we alter the world to fit our terms. For example, a child seeing a zebra for the first time and calling it a horse. The child assimilates the information into his/her schema for a horse. Accommodation is modifying our existing schemas to fit new experiences. Therefore, in terms of the zebra, once the child accommodates information, they’ll take into consideration the features of this animal in comparison to a horse, perhaps calling it a horse with stripes, once they learn the name, it is accommodated. Both of these concepts are allowing our understanding to advance. Piaget’s view on how intelligence is developed seems to have stood the test of time as the

role of schemas has made up the basis of the cognitive approach in the fact that it is a mental framework to enhance our cognitive development and a way to prevent us being overwhelmed by our environmental stimuli. When our old schemas are challenged by new events, it results in cognitive conflict. As a result, Piaget believed that this stimulates more complex cognitive growth as the conflict is unpleasant, motivating us to solve it via equilibration. This means achieving mental stability so that our internal thoughts are consistent with evidence from reality. This takes on a contrasting view to Vygotsky who believed adults were important as they pass on the cultures tools of thinking, whereas, Piaget believing that peers are important because the cognitive conflict triggered by other perspectives isn't so overwhelming that it can’t be resolved. This view of Piaget is highlighted in his development of the idea that humans progress through 4 stages. The Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete operational and Formal operations stages (Piaget 1952). The sensorimotor stage is from birth to 2 years, this is a period of rapid cognitive development gained by the achievement of object permanency. Newborns lack this understanding that objects will continue to exist even when they are hidden. This develops over a course of time. By 8-12 months they become reliant on actions to know an object mastering things like looking for an object if it’s hidden under a cloth. By 18 months, the infant is capable of mentally representing invisible moves, object permanence is mastered. This leads to the evolution of cognitive structures and schemas as they begin to coordinate sensory input and motor responses. Beginning to accommodate certain schemas to the world, for example, accommodating the sucking schema to different objects. This represents how they tend to solve problems through actions and experimentation rather than using logic or their minds. The preoperational stage is between the ages of 2 and 7 years old, this is where the symbolic capacity emerges, giving them the ability to use images, words or gestures to represent objects and experiences they may not be able to see. They have developed a more sophisticated form of problem solving. They use their symbolic capacity imaginatively, engaging in pretend play, for example, using a banana as a phone or creating imaginary friends. They don't tend to use logic to arrive at the right answers but this creativity is associated with enhanced cognitive and social development. These children also show a lack of conservation, they haven’t mastered the idea that certain properties of an object do not change when the appearance is changed in a superficial way (Sigelman & Rider 2012). He used the example of the conservation-of-liquid-quantity task, where Piaget poured equal amounts of water into 2 identical glasses. The children agree they have the same amount,however, the child then watches him pour the same water into a shorter glass. Children younger than 7 nearly always saying the taller glass has more inside. This is caused by their lack of decentration, which is the ability to focus on 2 or more dimensions of a problem at once, for example, height and width. They are unable to process the two ideas together. This is also because they lack in transformational thought, which is the ability to form conceptions about processes of change. Older children would use reversibility, mentally undoing the action to prove it was the same amount whereas younger children within this stage lack this ability. As well as this, they also show egocentrism where children have a difficulty to recognise other people’s views. This was shown with the example of the 3 mountains, in which the child had to identity the point of view of a doll placed opposite them using a set of photos. Only 7-8 year olds consistently identified the correct image. These children also have a difficulty with classification, constantly changing their sorting criteria

from moment to moment, unlike older preoperational children who can group objects based on shape, colour etc, as they understand class inclusion, they have logical understanding of what parts are included within the whole. This would be further developed during the concrete operational stage which occurs between 7 and 11 years, where they have mastered decentration, reversibility and transformational thought. They begin to use logic opposed to inferences. This is the stage in which they overcome egocentrism and improve their ability in maths and arithmetic. They develop the concept of seriation, where they can arrange items mentally along a quantifiable dimension. They also develop transitivity, having the ability to recognise relationships among various things in a serial order. For example the ‘who’s taller’ riddle. The last step is formal operations stage, this occurs from 11 years onwards. These children become more reliant on logic, using more systematic approaches to problem solving. They have the ability to think hypothetically and abstractly. For example, when given the hypothetical of ‘if you could have a third eye and put it anywhere on your body, where would it be’? Those in the concrete operational stage are limited by reality, but those in the formal operations stage are able to think with possibilities. They don’t tend to focus on facts of the here and now. They are also capable of scientific reasoning, this is evident in the pendulum task where children are given several weights that can be tied to a pendulum (Seligman & Rider 2012). They are told that the length of the string, weight and the height can vary, they then have to work out which was more important in determining the speed of the pendulum. Unlike children in the concrete operationalist stage, those in the formal operations stage generate reasonable hypothesis, relying on hypothetical and deductive reasoning as opposed to using trial and error. These stages could be said to have stood the test of time as Piaget was largely right in his description of cognitive development. The stages proposed seems to describe the course and content of childrens and adolescents intellectual development from many different cultures. The age rate may change, but the stages remain the same, it is relative to current thoughts and issues of today. His perspective has been applied to many aspects of human development, and the questions he raised continue to guide our studies today (Seligman & Rider 2012). However, a major flaw shows that his theory could not stand the test of time, is that he ignores many other factors that can influence performance, including memory, complexity, familiarity and verbal skills, he is too quick to assume that children who fail to meet milestones lack competency, as we know today that this may not be the case. In addition to this, he also overemphasised the idea that knowledge is an all or nothing concept, as in current modern day we experience periods of understanding and not understanding. Competence is something that we gain gradually, not something we either have or don’t (Seligman & Rider 2012). Another major flaw that shows his theory may not have stood the test of time, is that there are many individuals that are inconsistent on their performance that are presumably meant to measure the abilities of the stage they’re in. For example, only about half of college students show consistent mastery of formal operations scientific reasoning tasks. Even more shockingly, there are some societies have no adults that can solve formal operational problems. The majority of adults thinking similarly to adolescents (Jacobs & Klaczynski, 2002). Opposing what Piaget suggested about the stages of development. There are even some people that grow beyond formal operations. Therefore, showing that these stages are

not as universal as he believed. Piaget also placed a large amount of his theory on the individual, not taking into consideration the influence of social factors and interactions with others which could cause internal cognitive conflict. Therefore, not standing the test of time because we now belief that there is a mix of internal and external societal factors that affect cognitive development. Vygotsky attempted to give an alternative explanation, taking a majorly different stance than Piaget. He took a sociocultural perspective, suggesting that each culture has a set of tools that have been developed and embedded overtime. Therefore, to Vygotsky the adults are far more important than the individual, as Piaget suggested, as they know the tools needed to stimulate thinking and therefore allowing children to acquire them. For example, a child struggling with their first jigsaw puzzle, once they are given tips from someone else they appear to get the hang of it, working independently. This demonstrates that social interaction aids cognitive growth (Seligman & Rider 2012). This also represents the zone of proximal development, this is that gap between what children can accomplish independently and what they can accomplish with a guide. Skills within this zone are what can be developed via interactions and using the mental tools of society (Vygotsky 1978). As well as this, he believed that children could learn via guided participation with parents or guides. Helping them become more competent and aiding their development via their active participation in culturally relevant activities (Rogoff 1998). Therefore, Vygotsky rejects Piaget's view that children are independent explorers. Vygotsky also differs from Piaget because he believed that cognitive development varies from culture to culture, depending on the mental tools that are available. These mental tools are developed by watching demonstrations, children's mistakes being corrected by the adult. Leading to them adopting the tool as their own. Therefore, instead, Vygotsky believes that adults use these tools to pass down culturally valued modes of thinking and problem solving to their child (Vygotsky 1978). A similarity between the two is that they both found that preschool children would talk to themselves when they performed tasks, the difference being that Vygotsky called this private speech, where children used it to guide their thoughts and actions. To him it was critical in developing sophisticated thoughts, something adults partake in almost every day and using speech to guide their thinking. This parental voice is internalized, whereas, Piaget saw this as egocentrism and that children were unable to show competence of other people's perspectives (Seligman & Rider 2012). Vygotsky’s views could be said to have stood the test of time because as we are now aware, social factors are highly important. If a child is raised in poor environmental conditions with no educational opportunities, they are unlikely to develop to their full extent. Imagine a child being raised by a parent, who is unable to interact with that child for whatever reason, that child will then suffer the effects of not having any stimuli for growth. However, Vygotsky’s views may not have stood the test of time, although we may learn via many interactions in our day to day life, he places overemphasis on social interaction, assuming that all knowledge comes from this. As we know now, at least some understanding would be individually constructed as Piaget suggested in his theory. It may also appear that Piaget’s theory stood the test of time more so than Vygotsky’s because Piaget’s theory is more well known within today’s society, however, Vygotsky died before his theory could be fully developed and completed.

It may be difficult to see whether or not Vygotsky’s views stood the test of time because he did not provide as many specific hypotheses to test as Piaget did within his theory, therefore making it harder to refute or analyse. In conclusion, Vygotsky and Piaget seem to have more differences within their theories than similarities, both taking completely different stances on how we develop intellectually. Vygotsky's work may not have received the same amount of scrutiny as Piaget but this may partly be down to the fact that it is a time-consuming process to translate Vygotsky’s work as it was all written in Russian. Despite this, Piaget’s views seem to stand the test of time slightly more than Vygotsky because his main point on the stages of development are still relevant to this day, we still use milestones to evaluate where a child should be in regards to developmental stages, whether or not they are achieved, they still exist within our society. References Sigelman, C. K., & Rider, E. A. (2009). Human Development Across the LifeSpan (7th ed.). China: Wadsworth. Case, R. (1998). The development of conceptual structures. In W. Damon & D. Kuhn & R.S Siegler, Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol 2: Cognition, perception & language (5th ed). New York: Wiley. Rogoff. B (1998). Cognition as a collaborative process. In W. Damon & D. Kuhn & R.S Siegler, Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol 2: Cognition, perception & language (5th ed). New York: Wiley. Jacobs, J.E., Klaczynski, P.A. (2002). The Development of Judgment and Decision Making During Childhood and Adolescence. Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania. Vygotsky, L.S. (1978). Interaction Between Learning and Development. In Gauvain & Cole, Readings on the developments of children. New York: Scientific American Books. Piaget, J. (1952). The Origins of Intelligence in Children: When Thinking Begins. New York: International University Press....