What is Jean Piaget's theory of Cognitive Development and what are the implications for creating active classrooms?
Main, P (2021, June 11). Jean Piagets theory of Cognitive Development. Retrieved from https://www.structural-learning.com/post/jean-piagets-theory-of-cognitive-development-and-active-classrooms
The Theory of Cognitive Development by Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist, suggests that children's intelligence undergoes changes as they grow. Cognitive development in children is not only related to acquiring knowledge, children need to build or develop a mental model of their surrounding world (Miller, 2011). His work is regarded as the cornerstone in the field of developmental psychology. In this article, we examine the implications his work has for the intellectual development of children in classrooms.
In the 1920s, Piaget was working at the Binet Institute and his main responsibility was to translate questions written in English intelligence tests into French. He became interested to find out why children gave incorrect answers to the questions needing logical thinking (Meadows, 2019).
Piaget believed that these wrong answers revealed significant differences between the thinking of children and adults. Piaget proposed a new set of assumptions about the intelligence of children:
Piaget did not want to measure how well children can spell, count or solve problems to check their I.Q. He was more intrigued to find out how the fundamental concepts such as the very idea of time, number, justice, quantity and so on emerged (Greenfield, 2019).
Piaget used observations and clinical interviews of older children who were able to hold conversations and understand questions. He also made controlled observation, and used naturalistic observation of his own three children and developed diary description with charts of children's development.
Piaget's theory of cognitive development is based on the idea that children go through four stages of development, each with their own unique characteristics and abilities. The first stage, the sensorimotor stage, occurs from birth to around two years old and is characterized by the child's understanding of the world through sensory experiences and motor actions.
The second stage, the preoperational stage, occurs from around two to seven years old and is characterized by the child's ability to use symbols to represent objects and events. The third stage, the concrete operational stage, occurs from around seven to twelve years old and is characterized by the child's ability to think logically about concrete objects and events. Finally, the fourth stage, the formal operational stage, occurs from around twelve years old and is characterized by the child's ability to think abstractly and reason hypothetically.
He was born in 1896 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. After finishing high school he went to study medicine but soon changed course to philosophy and sociology. During World War 1, he worked as an army doctor. When war ended, he started studying law and then switched again to philosophy and sociology. At the age of 30, he published his first book “Genetic Epistemology” which received critical acclaim. This led him to become one of the leading psychologists of his generation. The Jean Piaget Society is named after him.
His research interests included child development, logic, mathematics, linguistics, social sciences and education.
His major works include "Logic", "Reasoning and Judgment" and "Constructionism". Jean Piaget's work is important because it provides us with insights into cognitive processes during childhood. It helps teachers identify what needs to be taught and when. The following sections will explore some of the key ideas behind Piagetian theories.
Piaget influenced the field of developmental psychology because he showed that learning takes place through stages rather than just being acquired all at once. Anyone exploring a career in child psychology will no doubt come across his influential work. In recent years, it has come into some criticism but the importance of his contribution to developmental psychology cannot be denied.
- He was one of the first people to study children's development and he developed the theory that children develop through stages.
- He also studied how children learn and he found out that they learn by doing things and not just listening or reading about them.
- He also discovered that children have their own ways of learning and that they don't always follow the same rules as adults do.
- He also found out that children are very creative and imaginative and that they like to play and explore.
- He also believed that children should be allowed to make mistakes and that they shouldn't be punished for making them.
According to Jean Piaget, stages of development takes place via the interaction between natural capacities and environmental happenings, and children experience a series of stages (Wellman, 2011). The sequence of these stages remains same across cultures. Each child goes through the same stages of cognitive development in life but with a different rate. The following are Piaget's stages of intellectual development:
From birth to 18-24 months
The infants use their actions and senses to explore and learn about their surrounding environment.
During this stage, children develop object permanence, which means they understand that objects continue to exist even when they can't see them. This is a crucial milestone in cognitive development as it allows children to start forming mental representations of the world around them. As they progress through the following stages, they will continue to build on this foundation of knowledge, ultimately developing more complex cognitive abilities.
A variety of cognitive abilities develop at this stage; which mainly include representational play, object permanence, deferred imitation and self-recognition.
At this stage, infants live only in present. They do not have anything related to this world stored in their memory. At age of 8 months, the infant will understand different objects' permanence and they will search for them when they are not present.
Towards the endpoint of this stage, infants' general symbolic function starts to appear and they can use two objects to stand for each other. Language begins to appear when they realise that they can use words to represent feelings and objects. The child starts to store information he knows about the world, label it and recall it.
From 2 to 7 years
The pre-operational stage is a crucial period in children's cognitive development. During this stage, children's thinking is not yet logical or concrete, and they struggle with concepts like cause and effect. They also have difficulty understanding other people's perspectives, which is why their thinking is egocentric. Additionally, their reasoning is based on intuition rather than logic, which can lead to errors in judgement. Despite these limitations, children in the pre-operational stage are still capable of incredible growth and learning, and it's important for parents and educators to provide them with the support and guidance they need to thrive.
Young children and Toddlers gain the ability to represent the world internally through mental imagery and language. At this stage, children symbolically think about things. They are able to make one thing, for example, an object or a word, stand for another thing different from itself.
A child mostly thinks about how the world appears, not how it is. At the preoperational stage, children do not show problem-solving or logical thinking. Infants in this age also show animism, which means that they think that toys and other non-living objects have feelings and live like a person.
By an age of 2 years, toddlers can detach their thought process from the physical world. But, they are still not yet able to develop operational or logical thinking skills of later stages.
Their thinking is still egocentric (centred on their own world view) and intuitive (based on children's subjective judgements about events).
7 to 11 years
At this stage, children start to show logical thinking about concrete events. They start to grasp the concept of conservation. They understand that, even if things change in appearance but some properties still remain the same. Children at this stage can reverse things mentally. They start to think about other people's feelings and thinking and they also become less egocentric.
This stage is also known as concrete as children begin to think logically. According to Piaget, this stage is a significant turning point of a child's cognitive development because it marks the starting point of operational or logical thinking. At this stage, a child is capable of internally working things out in their head (rather than trying things out in reality).
Another key characteristic of the Concrete Operational Stage is the development of deductive reasoning. Children at this stage can use logic to draw conclusions and solve problems. They are able to understand that if A equals B and B equals C, then A must equal C. This type of reasoning allows them to understand more complex concepts and ideas, setting them up for success in their academic and personal lives.
Children at this stage may become overwhelmed or they may make mistakes when they are asked to reason about hypothetical or abstract problems. Conservation means that the child understands that even if some things change in appearance but their properties may remain the same. At age 6 children are able to conserve number, at age 7 they can conserve mass and at age 9 they can conserve weight. But logical thinking is only used if children ask to reason about physically present materials.
Age 12 and above
At this stage, individuals perform concrete operations on things and they perform formal operations on ideas. Formal logical thinking is totally free from perceptual and physical barriers. During this stage, adolescents can understand abstract concepts. They are able to follow any specific kind of argument without thinking about any particular examples.
During the Formal Operational Stage, children begin to develop the ability to think abstractly and use symbolic reasoning. This means they can think beyond concrete, physical objects and concepts and start to understand more complex and abstract ideas. They can solve hypothetical problems and understand metaphors, analogies, and other abstract concepts. This stage typically occurs between the ages of 11 and 16, but can vary depending on the individual child's development.
Adolescents are capable of dealing with hypothetical problems with several possible outcomes.This stage allows the emergence of scientific reasoning, formulating hypotheses and abstract theories as and whenever needed.
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development made no claims about any specific age-associated with any of the particular stage but his description provides an indication of the age at which an average child would reach a certain stage.
In the realm of child development and cognition, theories often intersect, each providing a unique lens to understand the intricate processes that govern a child's growth. Renowned psychologists like Jean Piaget have made significant contributions, laying the foundation for further exploration. The following table outlines several prominent psychologists and their theories, highlighting the synergies with Piaget's ideas. The intertwined nature of these theories underscores the multifaceted nature of cognitive development, painting a comprehensive picture of how children learn, adapt, and evolve.
1. Lev Vygotsky: A Russian psychologist, Vygotsky proposed the Sociocultural Theory, emphasizing the significant influence of social interaction on cognitive development. His ideas resonate with Piaget's in the sense that both underscore the importance of active engagement in learning.
However, Vygotsky places a stronger emphasis on social factors in shaping cognitive schemas.
2. Erik Erikson: Erikson's theory of psychosocial development aligns with Piaget's ideas in its stage-based approach. While Piaget focuses on cognitive development, Erikson provides a broader view of social and emotional development, complementing the understanding of a child's evolving abilities.
3. Lawrence Kohlberg: Known for his stages of moral development, Kohlberg's work parallels Piaget's understanding of how children progress through distinct stages. Both theories underscore the idea that children's abilities and understanding evolve with time and experience.
4. Urie Bronfenbrenner: Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory provides a macro view of child development, considering the interplay of various environmental systems. This theory can be seen as complementary to Piaget's focus on the individual child's cognitive growth, adding a broader perspective on the environmental factors influencing this development.
5. Albert Bandura: Bandura's Social Learning Theory posits that children learn by observing and imitating others. This theory aligns with Piaget's emphasis on active engagement in learning, but adds a social aspect to the learning process, complementing Piaget's focus on individual exploration and discovery.
6. Howard Gardner: Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences proposes that there are multiple ways to be intelligent, going beyond the traditional IQ concept. His theory doesn't directly align with Piaget's work, but offers a different lens to view cognitive abilities of children, thereby enriching our understanding of child development.
If we talk about learning as something that needs to be built then the idea of cognitive schemas makes perfect sense. These hidden worlds of the learner are what we as educators are trying to develop. In many ways our ability to build on our schemas is a fundamental aspect of intelligence. This could be where metacognition plays a central role.
Piaget believes that a schema involves a category of knowledge and the procedure to obtain that knowledge. As individuals gain new experiences, the new information is modified, and gets added to, or alter pre-existing schemas.
A child may have a schema about cats. For example: if his only experience has been with small cats, the child may believe that all cats are small. If this kid encounters a large cat, he would take in this new knowledge, altering the old schema to incorporate this new piece of information.
Although, later researchers have demonstrated how Piaget's theory is applicable for learning and teaching but Piaget (1952) does not clearly relate his theory to learning.
Piaget was very influential in creating teaching practices and educational policy. For instance, in 1966 a primary education review by the UK government was based upon Piaget’s theory. Also, the outcome of this review provided the foundation for publishing Plowden report (1967).
Discovery learning – the concept that children learn best through actively exploring and doing - was viewed as central to the primary school curriculum transformation.
Piaget believes that children must not be taught certain concepts until reaching the appropriate cognitive development stage. Also, accommodation and assimilation are requirements of an active learner only, because problem-solving skills must only be discovered they cannot be taught. The learning inside the classrooms must be student-centred and performed via active discovery learning. The primary role of an instructor is to facilitate learning, rather than direct teaching. Hence, teachers need to ensure the following practices within the classroom:
Here are a list of potential activities thatare designed to align with the cognitive abilities typical of each developmental stage according to Piaget's theory.
After having revisited some of this theory you can hopefully see the implications for the development of knowledge using our 'Writers Block'. Our earlier stages of developing this tool started with the idea of using concrete objects to represent abstract concepts. Children could start with their pre-existing schema and build from there.
You can read more about this active process of learning on the mental modelling page. Beginning an activity by asking a child the question 'What do I already know?' gives the pupil something to build on when starting an academic task. These cognitive structures serve as a platform for mental development. No one likes starting with a blank piece of paper and having previous knowledge visualised enables even the most reluctant of learner to 'get going'.
Piaget’s ideas have enormous influence on developmental psychology. His theories changed methods of teaching and changed people's perceptions about a child’s world.
Piaget (1936) was the foremost psychologist whose ideas enhanced people's understanding of cognitive development. His concepts have been of practical use in communicating with and understanding children, specially in the field of education (Discovery Learning).
Piaget's main contributions include thorough observational studies of cognition in children, stage theory of children's cognitive development, and a series of ingenious but simple tests to evaluate multiple cognitive abilities.
Do stages really exist? Critiques of Formal Operation Thinking believe that the final stage of formal operations does not provide correct explanation of cognitive development. Not every person is capable of abstract reasoning and many adults do not even reach level of formal operations. For instance, Dasen (1994) mentioned that only less than half of adults ever reach the stage of formal operation. Maybe they are not distinct stages? Piaget was extremely focused on the universal stages of biological maturation and cognitive development that he failed to address the effect of culture and social setting on cognitive development.
A contemporary of Piaget, Vygotsky argued that social interaction is essential for cognitive development. Vygotsky believes that a child's learning always takes place in a social context involving co-operation of someone more knowledgeable (MKO). This kind od social interaction offers language opportunities and according to Vygotksy language provides the basis of thought.
Hughes (1975) believes that Piaget underestimated children's abilities as his tests were frequently unclear and hard to understand. Vygotsky (1978) and Bruner (1966) were against the concept of schema. Behaviorism also disapproves Piaget’s schema theory as it is an internal phenomenon which cannot be observed directly. Due to this, they would claim schema cannot be measured objectively.
The Theory of Cognitive Development by Jean Piaget, the Swiss psychologist, suggests that children's intelligence undergoes changes as they grow. Cognitive development in children is not only related to acquiring knowledge, children need to build or develop a mental model of their surrounding world (Miller, 2011). His work is regarded as the cornerstone in the field of developmental psychology. In this article, we examine the implications his work has for the intellectual development of children in classrooms.
In the 1920s, Piaget was working at the Binet Institute and his main responsibility was to translate questions written in English intelligence tests into French. He became interested to find out why children gave incorrect answers to the questions needing logical thinking (Meadows, 2019).
Piaget believed that these wrong answers revealed significant differences between the thinking of children and adults. Piaget proposed a new set of assumptions about the intelligence of children:
Piaget did not want to measure how well children can spell, count or solve problems to check their I.Q. He was more intrigued to find out how the fundamental concepts such as the very idea of time, number, justice, quantity and so on emerged (Greenfield, 2019).
Piaget used observations and clinical interviews of older children who were able to hold conversations and understand questions. He also made controlled observation, and used naturalistic observation of his own three children and developed diary description with charts of children's development.
Piaget's theory of cognitive development is based on the idea that children go through four stages of development, each with their own unique characteristics and abilities. The first stage, the sensorimotor stage, occurs from birth to around two years old and is characterized by the child's understanding of the world through sensory experiences and motor actions.
The second stage, the preoperational stage, occurs from around two to seven years old and is characterized by the child's ability to use symbols to represent objects and events. The third stage, the concrete operational stage, occurs from around seven to twelve years old and is characterized by the child's ability to think logically about concrete objects and events. Finally, the fourth stage, the formal operational stage, occurs from around twelve years old and is characterized by the child's ability to think abstractly and reason hypothetically.
He was born in 1896 in Neuchâtel, Switzerland. After finishing high school he went to study medicine but soon changed course to philosophy and sociology. During World War 1, he worked as an army doctor. When war ended, he started studying law and then switched again to philosophy and sociology. At the age of 30, he published his first book “Genetic Epistemology” which received critical acclaim. This led him to become one of the leading psychologists of his generation. The Jean Piaget Society is named after him.
His research interests included child development, logic, mathematics, linguistics, social sciences and education.
His major works include "Logic", "Reasoning and Judgment" and "Constructionism". Jean Piaget's work is important because it provides us with insights into cognitive processes during childhood. It helps teachers identify what needs to be taught and when. The following sections will explore some of the key ideas behind Piagetian theories.
Piaget influenced the field of developmental psychology because he showed that learning takes place through stages rather than just being acquired all at once. Anyone exploring a career in child psychology will no doubt come across his influential work. In recent years, it has come into some criticism but the importance of his contribution to developmental psychology cannot be denied.
- He was one of the first people to study children's development and he developed the theory that children develop through stages.
- He also studied how children learn and he found out that they learn by doing things and not just listening or reading about them.
- He also discovered that children have their own ways of learning and that they don't always follow the same rules as adults do.
- He also found out that children are very creative and imaginative and that they like to play and explore.
- He also believed that children should be allowed to make mistakes and that they shouldn't be punished for making them.
According to Jean Piaget, stages of development takes place via the interaction between natural capacities and environmental happenings, and children experience a series of stages (Wellman, 2011). The sequence of these stages remains same across cultures. Each child goes through the same stages of cognitive development in life but with a different rate. The following are Piaget's stages of intellectual development:
From birth to 18-24 months
The infants use their actions and senses to explore and learn about their surrounding environment.
During this stage, children develop object permanence, which means they understand that objects continue to exist even when they can't see them. This is a crucial milestone in cognitive development as it allows children to start forming mental representations of the world around them. As they progress through the following stages, they will continue to build on this foundation of knowledge, ultimately developing more complex cognitive abilities.
A variety of cognitive abilities develop at this stage; which mainly include representational play, object permanence, deferred imitation and self-recognition.
At this stage, infants live only in present. They do not have anything related to this world stored in their memory. At age of 8 months, the infant will understand different objects' permanence and they will search for them when they are not present.
Towards the endpoint of this stage, infants' general symbolic function starts to appear and they can use two objects to stand for each other. Language begins to appear when they realise that they can use words to represent feelings and objects. The child starts to store information he knows about the world, label it and recall it.
From 2 to 7 years
The pre-operational stage is a crucial period in children's cognitive development. During this stage, children's thinking is not yet logical or concrete, and they struggle with concepts like cause and effect. They also have difficulty understanding other people's perspectives, which is why their thinking is egocentric. Additionally, their reasoning is based on intuition rather than logic, which can lead to errors in judgement. Despite these limitations, children in the pre-operational stage are still capable of incredible growth and learning, and it's important for parents and educators to provide them with the support and guidance they need to thrive.
Young children and Toddlers gain the ability to represent the world internally through mental imagery and language. At this stage, children symbolically think about things. They are able to make one thing, for example, an object or a word, stand for another thing different from itself.
A child mostly thinks about how the world appears, not how it is. At the preoperational stage, children do not show problem-solving or logical thinking. Infants in this age also show animism, which means that they think that toys and other non-living objects have feelings and live like a person.
By an age of 2 years, toddlers can detach their thought process from the physical world. But, they are still not yet able to develop operational or logical thinking skills of later stages.
Their thinking is still egocentric (centred on their own world view) and intuitive (based on children's subjective judgements about events).
7 to 11 years
At this stage, children start to show logical thinking about concrete events. They start to grasp the concept of conservation. They understand that, even if things change in appearance but some properties still remain the same. Children at this stage can reverse things mentally. They start to think about other people's feelings and thinking and they also become less egocentric.
This stage is also known as concrete as children begin to think logically. According to Piaget, this stage is a significant turning point of a child's cognitive development because it marks the starting point of operational or logical thinking. At this stage, a child is capable of internally working things out in their head (rather than trying things out in reality).
Another key characteristic of the Concrete Operational Stage is the development of deductive reasoning. Children at this stage can use logic to draw conclusions and solve problems. They are able to understand that if A equals B and B equals C, then A must equal C. This type of reasoning allows them to understand more complex concepts and ideas, setting them up for success in their academic and personal lives.
Children at this stage may become overwhelmed or they may make mistakes when they are asked to reason about hypothetical or abstract problems. Conservation means that the child understands that even if some things change in appearance but their properties may remain the same. At age 6 children are able to conserve number, at age 7 they can conserve mass and at age 9 they can conserve weight. But logical thinking is only used if children ask to reason about physically present materials.
Age 12 and above
At this stage, individuals perform concrete operations on things and they perform formal operations on ideas. Formal logical thinking is totally free from perceptual and physical barriers. During this stage, adolescents can understand abstract concepts. They are able to follow any specific kind of argument without thinking about any particular examples.
During the Formal Operational Stage, children begin to develop the ability to think abstractly and use symbolic reasoning. This means they can think beyond concrete, physical objects and concepts and start to understand more complex and abstract ideas. They can solve hypothetical problems and understand metaphors, analogies, and other abstract concepts. This stage typically occurs between the ages of 11 and 16, but can vary depending on the individual child's development.
Adolescents are capable of dealing with hypothetical problems with several possible outcomes.This stage allows the emergence of scientific reasoning, formulating hypotheses and abstract theories as and whenever needed.
Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development made no claims about any specific age-associated with any of the particular stage but his description provides an indication of the age at which an average child would reach a certain stage.
In the realm of child development and cognition, theories often intersect, each providing a unique lens to understand the intricate processes that govern a child's growth. Renowned psychologists like Jean Piaget have made significant contributions, laying the foundation for further exploration. The following table outlines several prominent psychologists and their theories, highlighting the synergies with Piaget's ideas. The intertwined nature of these theories underscores the multifaceted nature of cognitive development, painting a comprehensive picture of how children learn, adapt, and evolve.
1. Lev Vygotsky: A Russian psychologist, Vygotsky proposed the Sociocultural Theory, emphasizing the significant influence of social interaction on cognitive development. His ideas resonate with Piaget's in the sense that both underscore the importance of active engagement in learning.
However, Vygotsky places a stronger emphasis on social factors in shaping cognitive schemas.
2. Erik Erikson: Erikson's theory of psychosocial development aligns with Piaget's ideas in its stage-based approach. While Piaget focuses on cognitive development, Erikson provides a broader view of social and emotional development, complementing the understanding of a child's evolving abilities.
3. Lawrence Kohlberg: Known for his stages of moral development, Kohlberg's work parallels Piaget's understanding of how children progress through distinct stages. Both theories underscore the idea that children's abilities and understanding evolve with time and experience.
4. Urie Bronfenbrenner: Bronfenbrenner's ecological systems theory provides a macro view of child development, considering the interplay of various environmental systems. This theory can be seen as complementary to Piaget's focus on the individual child's cognitive growth, adding a broader perspective on the environmental factors influencing this development.
5. Albert Bandura: Bandura's Social Learning Theory posits that children learn by observing and imitating others. This theory aligns with Piaget's emphasis on active engagement in learning, but adds a social aspect to the learning process, complementing Piaget's focus on individual exploration and discovery.
6. Howard Gardner: Gardner's theory of multiple intelligences proposes that there are multiple ways to be intelligent, going beyond the traditional IQ concept. His theory doesn't directly align with Piaget's work, but offers a different lens to view cognitive abilities of children, thereby enriching our understanding of child development.
If we talk about learning as something that needs to be built then the idea of cognitive schemas makes perfect sense. These hidden worlds of the learner are what we as educators are trying to develop. In many ways our ability to build on our schemas is a fundamental aspect of intelligence. This could be where metacognition plays a central role.
Piaget believes that a schema involves a category of knowledge and the procedure to obtain that knowledge. As individuals gain new experiences, the new information is modified, and gets added to, or alter pre-existing schemas.
A child may have a schema about cats. For example: if his only experience has been with small cats, the child may believe that all cats are small. If this kid encounters a large cat, he would take in this new knowledge, altering the old schema to incorporate this new piece of information.
Although, later researchers have demonstrated how Piaget's theory is applicable for learning and teaching but Piaget (1952) does not clearly relate his theory to learning.
Piaget was very influential in creating teaching practices and educational policy. For instance, in 1966 a primary education review by the UK government was based upon Piaget’s theory. Also, the outcome of this review provided the foundation for publishing Plowden report (1967).
Discovery learning – the concept that children learn best through actively exploring and doing - was viewed as central to the primary school curriculum transformation.
Piaget believes that children must not be taught certain concepts until reaching the appropriate cognitive development stage. Also, accommodation and assimilation are requirements of an active learner only, because problem-solving skills must only be discovered they cannot be taught. The learning inside the classrooms must be student-centred and performed via active discovery learning. The primary role of an instructor is to facilitate learning, rather than direct teaching. Hence, teachers need to ensure the following practices within the classroom:
Here are a list of potential activities thatare designed to align with the cognitive abilities typical of each developmental stage according to Piaget's theory.
After having revisited some of this theory you can hopefully see the implications for the development of knowledge using our 'Writers Block'. Our earlier stages of developing this tool started with the idea of using concrete objects to represent abstract concepts. Children could start with their pre-existing schema and build from there.
You can read more about this active process of learning on the mental modelling page. Beginning an activity by asking a child the question 'What do I already know?' gives the pupil something to build on when starting an academic task. These cognitive structures serve as a platform for mental development. No one likes starting with a blank piece of paper and having previous knowledge visualised enables even the most reluctant of learner to 'get going'.
Piaget’s ideas have enormous influence on developmental psychology. His theories changed methods of teaching and changed people's perceptions about a child’s world.
Piaget (1936) was the foremost psychologist whose ideas enhanced people's understanding of cognitive development. His concepts have been of practical use in communicating with and understanding children, specially in the field of education (Discovery Learning).
Piaget's main contributions include thorough observational studies of cognition in children, stage theory of children's cognitive development, and a series of ingenious but simple tests to evaluate multiple cognitive abilities.
Do stages really exist? Critiques of Formal Operation Thinking believe that the final stage of formal operations does not provide correct explanation of cognitive development. Not every person is capable of abstract reasoning and many adults do not even reach level of formal operations. For instance, Dasen (1994) mentioned that only less than half of adults ever reach the stage of formal operation. Maybe they are not distinct stages? Piaget was extremely focused on the universal stages of biological maturation and cognitive development that he failed to address the effect of culture and social setting on cognitive development.
A contemporary of Piaget, Vygotsky argued that social interaction is essential for cognitive development. Vygotsky believes that a child's learning always takes place in a social context involving co-operation of someone more knowledgeable (MKO). This kind od social interaction offers language opportunities and according to Vygotksy language provides the basis of thought.
Hughes (1975) believes that Piaget underestimated children's abilities as his tests were frequently unclear and hard to understand. Vygotsky (1978) and Bruner (1966) were against the concept of schema. Behaviorism also disapproves Piaget’s schema theory as it is an internal phenomenon which cannot be observed directly. Due to this, they would claim schema cannot be measured objectively.
