Jean Piaget
Four Stages in Piaget's Theory
- Sensorimotor Stage; from birth to age two: The children experience the world through movement and their five senses. During the sensorimotor stage children are extremely egocentric, meaning they cannot perceive the world from others' viewpoints.
- Preoperational Stage; ages two to seven: Children cannot conserve or use logical thinking.
- Concrete Operational Stage; ages seven to eleven: Children can now conserve and think logically but only with practical aids. They are no longer egocentric.
- Formal Operational Stage; ages eleven to sixteen and onwards: Children develop abstract thought and can easily conserve and think logically in their mind.
Vocab
Schema: building blocks of knowledge
Assimilation: Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation
Accommodation: This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.
Schema: building blocks of knowledge
Assimilation: Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation
Accommodation: This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.
Evaluation of Piaget's Theory
Strengths
Strengths
- He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying children.
- He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas.
- Piaget's ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our understanding of cognitive development.
- His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with children, particularly in the field of education.
- Others have queried the age ranges of the stages.
- Keating reported that 40-60% of college students fail at formal operation tasks, and Dasen states that only one-third of adults ever reach the formal operational stage.
- Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased interpretation than other methods.
- Piaget observed alone.
- Several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand.
- Behaviorism would also refute Piaget’s schema theory.
- In his early studies he generally used his own children.