Compare and contrast Piaget’s theory and Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive

development during childhood, evaluating relevant research evidence.

Jean Piaget (1936) was a Swiss psychologist who was the first to look at
cognition in children in a developmental context. Lev Vagotsky (1934) was a
Russian psychologist who believed interactions and culture played a great role in
child development. Both Piaget and Vagotsky had a great interest in child
development and both had a constructivist approach. Piaget had a constructivist
approach suggesting that children develop their knowledge through their own
actions and activities whereas Vagotsky had a socio-constructivist approach
suggesting that mental functions in a child occur between individuals (social
level) rather than within them. He said children were apprentice where they
could only learn from someone is who more experienced and educated. One
important difference between Piaget and Vagotsky was that Piaget’s theory was
complete and his work had been extended over many years; however, Vagotsky’s
theories was incomplete due to his death from tuberculosis at the age of 37.

Piaget theory was based on 4 stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete

operational and formal operational) and these stages showed how a child’s
logical thinking changes from their infancy all the way to their adulthood. In
contrast, Vagotsky did not have theory that had been broken down into stages,
but rather had a theory that focused more on development of a child through
their social interaction and culture. There were three major areas in his theories.
Vagotsky looked at language and cognitive development of children, meaning
that children talk to themselves while they play and this helps and influences a
child’s learning through their own language and culture. Secondly, he looked at
Internalization where children learn by imitating people surrounded by them
and this is where the child observes a peer do something and internalizes their
act and does the act his/herself. Lastly, zone of proximal development this
examines the potentiality of what a child can do alone or with the help of
someone who is more knowledgeable. Within the zone of proximal development
he looked at scaffolding, which is the support, and help the child will get when
doing a particular task and as soon as the child is able to do the task alone the
scaffold is taken away. Both theories claimed children change through
qualitative changes. Piaget argued that children develop through stages that are
in a fixed order. Vagotsky said children changes are ‘revolutionary’ rather than
an ‘evolutionary’ process (page 33).

Piaget did not take culture into consideration as much as Vagotsky did. Piaget
believed that culture does not influence a child’s development, but said that
children simply use their own cognitive abilities to solve any problems that
occur in their daily lives, whereas Vagotsky stated that culture plays a major role
in a child’s development. He believed that the environment and culture children
are raised in and the way they socialise with others has an impact in their
development, knowledge as well as helps a child resolve and deal with their
problems. Additionally, Vagotsky stated that the beliefs, values, norms children
learn in their culture they would internalise it and would allow them to pass it on
to the next generation. There is evidence to support cultural influence, which
was the study by Price-Williams et al (1969). Their study was conducted on
Mexican and European children and wanted to see if children from these two
cultures would pass conservations task. There results showed that children in
Mexican families passed conservations earlier than European children (Price-
Williams et al., 1969). This is because Mexican children in 1969 had a lot more
experience with containers and fluids of different sizes. It is not biologically
determined but rather it’s mediated by culture. This study shows that
development can vary from culture to culture and evidence that culture can
affect learning.

Another difference between Piaget and Vagotsky is adult and peer influence.
According to Piaget’s theory, he believed that adults are not as influential on a
child’s behaviour as much as their peers. Piaget stated that children see adults as
people who know everything and are error free, this results in children believing
that adults are completely different to them. However, children see their peers
as people who are just like them and of the same age. Piaget claims that when
children have disagreements with their peers its similar to the disagreement
they would have with adults, which results in cognitive conflicts, disequilibrium
and equilibrium. (Duncan M., 1995). In contrast, Vagotsky claimed that children
consider adults are influential on their development, knowledge and learning
compared to their peers. Vagotsky believed that children see adults as people
who help them learn new behaviours. This notion of Vagotsky links back to his
idea about the zone of proximal development which is what a child can do alone
and what a child is capable of doing with the help of someone who is well
educated. There is evidence to support the zone of proximal development which
was a study conducted by Freund (1990). The study consisted of young children
deciding where a specific item of furniture belonged in a dollhouse. In some of
the trials children were allowed to play with their mother and other trials they
had to do the task alone. The findings of this study supported the zone of
proximal development as children showed better performance in the task when
working with their mother rather than doing the task alone.

Both Piaget and Vagotsky considered language in children’s development.

According to Piaget, children thoughts influence language, meaning that a child’s
memory; imagination, symbolic play and all of a child’s cognitive ability will
come before their language. On the other hand, Vagotsky implied that language is
a special case and the most important psychological tool in child development.
He believed that languages and thoughts are independent of each other and
stated that language allows a child to control their behavior. It allows children to
think and talk to themselves during play as well as help them when they grow
older to give themselves advice silently. Furthermore, Both Piaget and Vagotsky
looked at private speech/egocentric speech. Piaget came up with the term
egocentric speech. Egocentric speech is when children talk to themselves. Piaget
said that egocentric speech occurs when children haven’t learnt to interact with
others, hence why they start talking to his/herself. However, he believed that
when children are 7 years old their socialization with people increase and so
egocentric speech ‘dies out’ and children are no longer egocentric. Vagotsky, on
the other hand, looked at social speech (when a child’s thoughts and language
are independent), private speech (when a child talks aloud to themselves but is
not heard by others) and lastly he looked inner speech (when children don’t
vocalize their thoughts). Vagotsky suggested that private speech is a healthy and
important function as it allows children to contemplate and reflect about
his/herself and can be used as self-guidance for the child. Research by Kohlberg
et al supports Vagotsky’s idea about private speech and found that children use
egocentric speech as a means to control their actions and also children imitate
the same vocal method others have been using to help them. (Kohlberg et al.,
1968).

Evaluation:

A criticism of Piaget’s theory was that the task children had to do was very
complex and complicated which underestimated a child’s cognitive abilities and
made it difficult for children. Researchers such as McGarrigle et al suggested that
children are more capable of accomplishing tasks that are made simpler for them
rather than made difficult. Evidence by Masangkay et al, who tested egocentrism
using a simple task did a study were children were shown two pictures and were
asked whether the turtle in the picture is right side up or upside down. They
results showed that 3-4 years performed at a moderate level in identifying the
position of the turtle whereas 4-4 ½ years olds performed exceptionally well in
identifying the position of the turtle. This is evidence that children can be
successful in completing tasks that are simplified than tasks that are more
complex (Masangkay et al., 1974). Another criticism of Piaget’s theory was that
he observed and based his main ideas and theory on his four children. This can
be a weakness to his theory because it lacked generalizability as he had a small
sample size as he focused on the development of his four children and so his
theory data cannot be applied to the wider population.

Also, many researchers said that children gradually change as they grow and not
just go through series of stages as, Piaget stated. Piaget didn’t consider individual
differences and that some children may not move from one stage to another so
his stages of development may seem inaccurate. However, Piaget’s theory was
that he was the first psychologist to contribute to the understanding of child
development through his work. His theory has been reviewed over many
decades, allowing many to increase their understanding and methods of studying
children. Even though many researchers criticized him he still left a benchmark
and he is still cited hugely. Also, despite Piaget not focusing on education a lot,
his work had facilitated many educational institutions to teach and provide
support to children in the way they had developed.

Strength of Vagotsky’s theory is that it has shown the importance that

development of a child is influenced a lot by their social interactions and culture
they experience in their environment. Also, his theory has encouraged parents
and teachers to interact as well as provide instructions to children as this helps
children learn and develop new skills, therefore his theory has provided
importance to adult child relationship. There is a evidence to support Vagotsky’s
notion about adult child relationship which was a study conducted by Tan Niam
et al who wanted to investigate whether children work better alone or with a
peer in solving complex tasks. They found that children work better as a group
as they help one another in solving complex activities and tasks then children
who work alone. Also, there is evidence from the study conducted by Neitzel and
straight who found that when children are encouraged and assisted by their
parents from a young age, they produce better results when they go to high
school then children who are not supported by their parents (Neitzel & Streight.,
2003).

A limitation of Vagotsky’s theory is that he didn’t focus much on how biological

factors (genes) could affect a child’s development. It could be that children are
born with a certain capability or skill and not just been influenced by their social
environment, so such factors were not considered. Also, he didn’t look at
children’s basic memory, motor and perceptual ability and how this can have
impact on a child’s development rather than all of it coming from the
environment children were raised in. another weakness of Vagotsky’s theory is
that he underestimates a child’s involvement in their own learning. He believed
that children were not active learners and can only learn through help and
support through a scaffold and zone of proximal development. Another
weakness of Vagotsky’s theory was he placed a lot of emphasis on language in
cultures. However, what he didn’t consider was that some children don’t just
learn by conversing with an adult but learn through motivation and
encouragement from an adult. For example, parents in western cultures help
their children in plays or tasks by providing a lot of interest and also
encouragement and support rather than just communicating.

To conclude, it could be argued that neither theory is completely wrong or

completely right as Piaget overestimated a child’s development by stating it
occurs in stages, and Vygtosky overestimated the importance of socialisation
between individuals in child development. However, despite there differences
both theories have delivered the importance and understanding of cognition in
child development in today’s world.
References:

Lloyd, P. (1999). The zone of proximal development. London: Routledge.

Duncan, R. (1995). Piaget and Vygotsky Revisited: Dialogue or Assimilation?

Developmental Review, 15(4), 458-472. doi:10.1006/drev.1995.1019

Freund, L. S. (1990). Maternal Regulation of Children's Problem-Solving Behavior

and Its Impact on Children's Performance. Child Development, 61(1), 113.
doi:10.2307/1131052

Berk, L. E. (2013). Child Development. London: Pearson. Chapter 6.

Price-Williams, D., Gordon, W., & Ramirez, M. (1969). Skill and conservation: A
study of pottery-making children. Developmental Psychology, 1(6, Pt.1), 769-
769. doi:10.1037/h0028264

Kohlberg, L., Yaeger, J., & Hjertholm, E. (1968). Private Speech: Four Studies and
a Review of Theories. Child Development, 39(3), 691. doi:10.2307/1126979