Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

Unit of knowledge

• Contain our understanding of an object, idea, or person
• Become more detailed and complex as we develop and acquire more information
• Mental framwork of beliefs and expectations
• Piaget stated that children are born with just enough schemas to allow them to interact with others
• Infants have 'me-schema' - stores knowledge about themselves
• As adults, we develop schemas about abstract ideas, e.g. justice and morality

When new knowledge can be incorporated into one of our existing schemas

• Able to equilibriate by incorporating the knowledge into an existing schema
• The knowledge does nto radically change our current understanding
• E.g. a child in a family with dogs can adapt to the existence of other dog breeds because they can assimilate this knowledge into their existing dog schema

When new information changes our existing understanding to the extent that a new schema has to be created or an existing schema has to be radically changed

• Response to dramatically new experiences
• E.g. a child with a pet dog may see a cat and call it a dog, but once someone has told them that it is in fact a cat, they will accommodate to the existence of a species called cats, and a cat schema will be created

Preferred mental state - when we have acquired new information and built it into our understanding of a topic by either assimilated it or accommodated it into schemas

• Piaget stated that we are motivated to learn when our existing schemas do not allow us to make sense of something new
• When we are unable to assimilate, we are in disequilibrium - unpleasant feeling of a lack of balance
• We reach equilibrium - a feeling of balance - by learning and exploring, so adapting to the situation

• Piaget's theory that children learn through exploring their environment has revolutionised teaching 
• Previously children learned by sitting in rows in silence and copying from the board
• This has been replaced by activity-oriented learning
• E.g. children in reception are given equipment to discover the physical properties of water and sand

• The role of other people in learning was not the focus of Piaget's theory
• Piaget recognised adults and peers as important during discovery learning but saw learning in the mind of the individual
• Refuted by Vygotsky - states that learning is a social process and that child are capable of more advanced learning with the help of an adult or MKO

• Piaget saw language as a result of cognitive development
• Refuted by Vygotsky who saw language as a key to cognitive developement