Chapter 3

PIAGET’S THEORY OF
Cognitive Development: COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Key Concepts in Piaget’s Theory

Piaget’s and Stages of Cognitive Development

Limitations of Piaget’s Theory
Educational Implications of Piaget’s
Vygotsky’s Theories Theory

VYGOTSKY’S THEORY OF
Teacher: Can someone tell me whether the water today boiled more COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT
Key Concepts in Vygotsky’s Theory
or less quickly than before? Contrasts between Piaget’s and
Student: More quickly. Vygotsky’s Theories
Limitations of Vygotsky’s Theory
Teacher: Why? Who has some ideas? Educational Contributions of Vygotsky’s
Theory
Student: Particles are more separated.
Teacher: Okay; let’s think about density. Is tap water more or less PUTTING PIAGET’S AND
VYGOTSKY’S THEORIES
dense than boiled water? What happens to water when it TOGETHER
boils? CHAPTER SUMMARY
Student: There are bubbles. KEY TERMS
Student: It evaporates. ACTIVITIES
Teacher: Is the water turning into gas?
Student: Yes.
Teacher: Would that make the water more or less dense?
Student: Less dense.
Teacher: Okay; think about two pots of beans. If you have one pot
with just a little bit of beans and a pot with a lot of beans,
which pot would take longer to boil?
Student: The pot with a lot of beans.
Teacher: Why?
Student: It’s more dense.
Teacher: Okay; let’s talk about temperature. At what temperature
did the tap water boil? What about the already boiled

119
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

water? What did you see? Maybe we first need to come to some consensus
about boiling. Who can give me a definition?
Student: When the water starts to bubble.
Student: When there is steam.
Teacher: Okay; if we get steam, what is the boiling water doing? Is it changing states?
Student: It’s changing into gas.
Teacher: Okay; now did the boiling occur at a higher or lower temperature with the al-
ready boiled water?
Student: Higher.
Teacher: Who can tell me why?
Student: It’s less dense.
Teacher: Why?
Student: It’s got less stuff in it.
Teacher: Okay; can anyone give us a general rule about the relationship between density
and boiling?
Student: The less dense the solution, the longer it takes to boil.
Teacher: Good. Now let’s think about some other solutions. What about salt water?
Student: It’s more dense.
Teacher: What about alcohol?
Student: It’s less dense.
Teacher: Which would take longer to boil—alcohol or salt water?
Student: Alcohol, because it’s less dense.
Teacher: Good. We’ll talk about the experiment some more tomorrow. It’s time to
change classes.

T
his conversation is from a sixth-grade science class. The students have just com-
pleted an experiment in which they observed and recorded the temperature of and
the time it took to boil a solution of previously boiled water. The teacher expected
the students to compare these data with the information they collected from a similar ex-
periment with tap water. At the end of an activity, the teacher and students discuss the re-
sults together.
Do you think the students demonstrate a good understanding of the experiment at the
beginning of discussion? Not really. Although the students make some very good observa-
tions about the experiment, few are able to give a scientific explanation for what they ob-
served. The teacher and students construct this understanding jointly. The teacher does not
give the students the answers but helps the students think through the experiment by pos-
ing questions, linking new information to familiar experiences, giving feedback, and so
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

forth. We will learn that this teacher is providing a scaffold to guide the students’ thinking.
By the end of the discussion, the teacher and students have come to a shared understanding
of the experiment, and the students are able to apply this learning to new problems (e.g.,
What about alcohol and salt water?).
This science teacher is using what is known as a constructivist approach. The simple Following the
proposition underlying this approach is that children must construct their own understand- constructivist
ings of the world in which they live. Knowledge is not something teachers can directly view of learning,
transmit to learners. The information must be mentally acted on, manipulated, and trans- children build
formed in order to have meaning for the learner. However, as the example illustrates, the their own
teacher helps guide this knowledge construction process through focusing attention, posing knowledge of
questions, and stretching children’s thinking. The teacher’s role is to help students rethink the world from
their ideas by asking questions they would not generally think about on their own. Accord- interactions
ing to a constructivist point of view, learning involves structural changes in the way chil- with their
dren think about their world. environment, and
Constructivism is the basis for many current reforms in education. Both the National teachers help
Council for Teachers of Mathematics and the National Science Teachers Association have guide this
called for classrooms where problem-solving, “hands-on” experimentation, concept devel- knowledge
opment, logical reasoning, and authentic learning are emphasized. Similarly, advocates of construction
whole language approaches to reading and language arts also stress the importance of au- process by
thentic learning in which students are immersed in a language-rich environment in mean- focusing
ingful and productive ways. attention, posing
In this chapter, we examine the developmental theories that provide the psychological questions, and
foundations for a constructivist approach to learning. Constructivism is theoretically stretching
grounded in the developmental research of Piaget and Vygotsky. Piaget’s theory can help children’s
teachers understand how children reason or think about their world at different ages. Vygot- thinking.
sky’s theory can help teachers understand the social processes that influence the development
of children’s intellectual abilities. Both theories have important implications for teaching.

Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget had a major impact on the way we think about children’s development. Before
Piaget’s theory was introduced, children were generally thought of as passive organisms who
were shaped and molded by their environment. Piaget taught us that children act as “little sci-
entists,” trying to make sense of their world. They have their own logic and ways of know-
ing, which follow predictable patterns of development as children biologically mature and
interact with the world. By forming mental representations of their world, children are able Piaget taught us
to act on and influence their environment as much as their environment influences them. that children
Piaget was born in Switzerland in 1896. As a child, he was extremely bright and inquis- actively seek
itive. By the age of 10, he published his first scientific paper; he received his first job as a knowledge
curator of the mollusk collection at the Geneva museum by the age of 15. He received his through their
Ph.D. in natural sciences 6 years later. Piaget continued to develop his scholarship in many interactions with
areas, including sociology, religion, and philosophy. While studying philosophy, he became the environment
intrigued with epistemology, or how knowledge is obtained. This question led him to study and that they
philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne, where he met Theodore Simon, who, at the have their own
time, was developing the first intelligence test for children. Simon persuaded Piaget to as- logic and ways of
sist him in collecting age norms for his test items. It was through this work that Piaget be- knowing that
gan to explore children’s reasoning processes. He became intrigued with the fact that evolve over time.
individual children often had very different reasons for the answers they chose. For exam-
ple, two children might say a tree is alive but explain their answers differently. One child
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

may say it is alive because it moves, while another may say it’s alive because it makes
seeds. Through a set of procedures, which became known as the clinical interview method
(see Chapter 1, pp. 00–00), Piaget explored the reasoning processes underlying children’s
correct and incorrect answers. His fascination with children’s knowledge acquisition
processes helped sustain a 60-year career in child development research. By the end of his
career, Piaget had published more than 40 books and 200 articles on child psychology.
Piaget was an early constructivist theorist in psychology. He believed that children ac-
tively construct their own knowledge of the environment using what they already know to
interpret new events and objects. Piaget’s research focused primarily on how children ac-
quire knowledge as they develop. That is, he was not so interested in what children know
as he was in how they thought about problems and solutions. He believed cognitive devel-
opment involved changes in a child’s ability to reason about his or her world.

Key Concepts in Piaget’s Theory

Cognitive Stages
Piaget divided Piaget was a stage theorist who divided cognitive development into four major stages: sen-
cognitive sorimotor, preoperations, concrete operations, and formal operations. At each stage of de-
development into velopment, children’s thinking is assumed to be qualitatively different from their thinking
four major at other stages. According to Piaget, cognitive development involved not simply quantita-
stages, each tive changes in facts and skills but rather major transformations in the way children orga-
stage nize knowledge. Once children have entered a new cognitive stage they do not revert to an
representing a earlier form of reasoning or functioning.
transformation Piaget proposed that cognitive development occurs in an invariant sequence. That is, all
into a more children proceed through the four stages of cognitive development in the same sequence. It
complex and is not possible to skip or miss a stage. Piaget’s stages are generally related to specific age
abstract way ranges, but there is a great deal of individual and cultural variation in the amount of time
of knowing. children may spend in a particular stage. We will examine the cognitive characteristics of
each stage in a later section.

Development as Changes in Knowledge Structures

Piaget believed that everyone, even infants, begin to organize their knowledge of the world
into what he called schemata or schemes. Schemes are sets of physical actions, mental op-
erations, concepts, or theories people use to organize and to acquire information about their
Schemes are sets world. Young children primarily know their world through physical actions they can per-
of physical form, whereas older children and adults can perform mental operations and use symbol
actions, mental systems (e.g., language) to acquire knowledge about their world. As children progress
operations, through Piaget’s stages, they become increasingly able to use complex and abstract
concepts, or schemes for organizing knowledge. Cognitive development involves not just the construc-
theories people tion of new schemes, but the reorganization and differentiation of existing schemes.
use to acquire Piaget distinguished between three types of knowledge. Physical knowledge is know-
information ing the attributes of objects such as their number, color, size, and shape. Other examples of
about their physical knowledge may include the observations that some objects roll and other do not,
world. that some objects float and others do not, or that length of string can effect how fast objects
on a pendulum move back and forth. Physical knowledge is acquired by acting on objects,
experimenting, and observing reactions.
Logico-mathematical knowledge involves the mental construction of relationships. For
example, logico-mathematical knowledge involves the understanding that a certain number
of objects (which can be observed and counted) also represent a more abstract concept such
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

as number. The number “eight” is an abstract concept that cannot be derived from experi-
ence. Also, groups of 10 objects can make up larger numbers such as 50 or 100. Logico-
mathematical knowledge is also evident in the understanding that a mathematical problem Physical
such as 4  4 can also be represented by 2  2  2  2. Whereas physical knowledge is de- knowledge is
rived from observing and experimenting, logico-mathematical knowledge involves mental derived from
constructions or a reflective abstractions. Figure 3.1 shows children’s representation of the observing and
number “eight” in Piaget’s theory. In this example, the eight apples, tallies, and circles are experimenting,
concrete and observable (physical knowledge), but the number “eight” is a form of logico- but logico-
mathematical knowledge because it is a construction that needs to constructed by the child mathematical
from social knowledge. Unlike tallies and pictures that children can use to express their un- knowledge
derstanding of eight, the spoken word or sign for eight is taught (Kamii, 2000). involves mental
In this way, Piaget’s theory also recognized the importance of social knowledge that is constructions or
derived in part through interactions with others. Examples of this form of knowledge are abstractions.
mathematical words and signs (e.g., “” for addition), languages, musical notations, as
well as social and moral conventions, such as turn taking in conversations, ways of initiat-
ing interactions, how to play a game, or how to respond to another person in distress.

Principles of Development

Organization and Adaptation In Piaget’s theory two basic principles guide children’s
intellectual development. The first of these principles is organization, which Piaget be-
lieved is an innate predisposition in all species. As children mature, they integrate simple
physical patterns or mental schemes into more complex systems. The second guiding prin-
ciple is adaptation. According to Piaget, all organisms are born with the ability to adapt
their mental structures or behavior to fit environmental demands.

Assimilation and Accommodation Piaget used the terms assimilation and accommodation
to describe how children adapt to their environment. Through the process of assimilation

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Representation
The child’s idea of “eight” of “Eight” in
Result of Piaget’s Theory
(constructive abstraction SOURCE: After Kamii
(2000)
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

children mold new information to fit their existing schemes. For example, a young child
who has never seen a donkey may refer to it as a pony with long ears. Assimilation is not a
passive process; it often involves actively modifying or transforming new information to
make it fit prior knowledge. When this new information is consistent with what the child al-
ready knows, a state of equilibrium or balance is achieved. All the pieces of information fit
together. When new information does not fit into an existing scheme, the child may alter his
Assimilation is or her old way of thinking or acting to fit the new information. The process of changing ex-
the process of isting schemata is called accommodation. In the example given here, the child may form a
actively molding new scheme when he or she learns that the animal was not a pony but a donkey. Accommo-
new information dation is most likely to occur when the information is only slightly discrepant with the
to fit existing child’s existing schemes. If the information is too discrepant, accommodation may not be
schemes; possible, because the child does not have any mental structures for interpreting this infor-
accommodation mation. According to Piaget, the processes of assimilation and accommodation are closely
is the process of intertwined and explain changes in cognition throughout the life span.
changing existing Can you think of an example of assimilation and accommodation from your own learn-
schemes to fit ing experiences? As you are reading this material, you should be using what you already
new, discrepant know about children’s development to make sense of the new information. However, you
information. may need to adjust some of your ideas as you acquire new information. For example, you
may have learned elsewhere that infants are incapable of symbolic thought. As you will
see, Piaget’s theory teaches us that a form of symbolic thought begins to emerge during the
second year. Therefore, in order to develop a more sophisticated understanding of infancy,
you would need to change your existing knowledge of infant development to incorporate
(accommodate) this new information.

Development Processes
If cognitive development represents changes in children’s cognitive structures or schemata,
what causes those developmental changes? As an interactional theorist, Piaget viewed de-
velopment as a complex interaction of innate and environmental factors. According to Pi-
aget, the following four factors contribute to children’s cognitive development:

• Maturation of inherited physical structures

• Physical experiences with the environment
• Social transmission of information and knowledge
• Equilibration

Equilibration is Equilibration is a unique concept in Piaget’s theory that refers to our innate tendency to
the innate keep our cognitive structures in balance. Piaget maintained that states of disequilibrium or
tendency to keep imbalance are so intrinsically dissatisfying that people are compelled to alter their cogni-
one’s cognitive tive structures in order to restore balance. Equilibration is thus a form of self-regulation in
structures in Piaget’s theory. By altering and adjusting our cognitive structures we maintain organization
balance using the and stability in our environment. We also reach a higher level of cognitive functioning as a
processes of result of this equilibration process.
assimilation and
accommodation.
Stages of Cognitive Development
Piaget proposed that cognitive development followed an invariant sequence from infancy
through adolescence. The four stages of development are: (1) sensorimotor stage (birth to
2 years); preoperational stage (2 to 7 years); (3) concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years);
and (4) formal operational stage (11 years through adulthood). The Focus on Development
summarizes characteristics of each stage. As we will discuss later, child development
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Focus on Development
Stages in Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Stage Age Characteristics

Sensorimotor
The Active Child Birth to 2 Years Infants develop goal-directed behavior,
means-ends thinking, and object
permanence.
Preoperations
The Intuitive Child 2 to 7 Years Children can use symbols and words to
think. Intuitive problem solving, but
thinking limited by rigidity,
centration, and egocentrism.
Concrete Operations
The Practical Child 7 to 11 Years Children develop logical operations for
seriation, classification, and
conservation. Thinking tied to real
events and objects.
Formal Operations
The Reflective Child 11 to 12 Years Children develop abstract systems of
and Onward thought that allow them to use
propositional logic, scientific
reasoning, and proportional reasoning.

researchers today question several aspects of Piaget’s theory. For instance, questions have
been raised about the ages associated with each stage. We will learn that children may be
able to perform some cognitive operations earlier or later than Piaget originally proposed.
Theorists have also raised questions about the stagelike nature of children’s thinking. When
children are making a transition into a new stage, they often exhibit characteristics of the
new and old stage at the same time. We will first discuss the four stages, then consider the
limitations of Piaget’s theory.
According to
Piaget, children
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth to 2 Years) acquire the
During the sensorimotor stage, children acquire schemes for two basic competencies: (1) competencies of
goal-directed behavior and (2) object permanence. Piaget regarded these schemes as the goal-related
building blocks of symbolic thinking and human intelligence. behavior and
object
Development of Goal-Directed Behavior One defining characteristic of the sensorimo- permanence
tor period is an infant’s clear progression toward goal-directed actions. At birth, a child’s during the
behavior is largely controlled by reflexes. Babies are born with the ability to suck, grasp, sensorimotor
cry, and move their bodies, which allows them to assimilate physical experiences. For ex- period.
ample, a young child learns to differentiate hard from soft objects by sucking on them.
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

Six-Month Old
Infant
SOURCE: Mike
Malyszko/Stock Market.

XXX

Within the first few months, new behaviors are added. Thumb-sucking, for instance, is a
chance occurrence that, once discovered, is repeated over and over, because it is a pleasant
sensation for the baby. It is initiated by the child with a specific goal in mind. Piaget re-
ferred to this set of intentional or goal-directed actions as circular reactions.
By the end of the first year, a child begins to anticipate events and combines previously
acquired behaviors to achieve those goals. At this point, infants are no longer repeating ac-
cidental events but are initiating and selecting a sequence of actions to obtain a specific
goal. Piaget first observed this sequence of behavior when he placed his 10-month-old
son’s favorite toy under a pillow. His son paused, batted the pillow away, and grabbed the
toy. He combined several actions to get what he wanted.
At the end of the sensorimotor period, children begin to experiment with new ways of
accomplishing their goals when a problem cannot be solved with existing schemata (such
as looking, reaching, and grasping). If, for example, a child’s toy is out of reach under the
sofa, the child may crawl around to the back of the sofa to retrieve it. Rather than continu-
ing to apply existing schemata, the child is now able to mentally construct new solutions to
problems. For Piaget, the invention of new problem-solving methods marked the beginning
of truly intelligent behavior. Although children continue to solve problems through trial and
error for many more years, some of this experimentation can now be carried out internally
through mental representation of action sequences and goals.

Development of Object Permanence

Another important development that occurs in the sensorimotor period is object perma-
nence. Object permanence involves the knowledge that objects continue to exist even
when they can no longer be seen or acted on. As adults, we know a missing shoe continues
to exist even though we cannot see it. We search the closet, check under the bed, and finally
find it under the sofa in the living room. Young infants act differently when objects disap-
pear from their sight. They act as though the object no longer exists.
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

A child’s concept of object permanence can be studied in a number of different ways. As

described here, one way is to hide a child’s favorite toy under a pillow or blanket while the
child watches. Young infants (1 to 4 months) may visually track the object to the spot
where it disappears but show no awareness of the object once it is no longer visible. Piaget Object
explained that at this age, objects have no reality or existence for children unless directly permanence
perceived. Because the child’s only way of knowing objects is through their reflexive ac- involves the
tions, an object no longer exists if it cannot be sucked, grasped, or seen. In other words, the knowledge that
child is not yet able to form a mental representation of this object. objects continue
The first glimmer of object permanence emerges around 4 to 8 months. The child will to exist even
now search for an object if it is partially visible but needs some perceptual cue to remem- when they are out
ber the object continues to exist. Between 8 and 12 months, a child’s behavior indicates that of sight.
he or she understands an object continues to exist even though it cannot be seen. Children
will now actively search for hidden objects by combining several sensorimotor schemes,
such as looking, crawling, and reaching, into goal-directed actions.
Some researchers have questioned Piaget’s findings on object permanence (Baillargeon,
Spelke, & Wasserman, 1985; Flavell, 1985). Recent evidence suggests that a mental repre-
sentation of objects may appear as early as 3 and 4 months. Other researchers claim that ba-
bies may understand that objects are permanent, but may lack the memory skills to
remember the location of the object or the motor skills to carry out the actions needed to find
the object. Nevertheless, most
theorists agree that the ability
to construct mental images of
objects within the first year of
development is a significant
achievement. From this point
on, children’s intellectual de-
velopment is influenced more
by mental representations than
by sensorimotor activities.

Preoperational Stage
(2 to 7 Years)
The ability to think about ob-
jects, events, or people in their
absence marks the beginning
of the preoperational stage.
From 2 to 7 years old, children
demonstrate an increased abil-
ity to use symbols—gestures,
words, numbers, and images—
to represent real objects in their
environment. They can now
think and behave in ways that
were not possible before. They
can use words to communicate, Preschool Child
use numbers to count objects, Playing Dress-UP
engage in make-believe play, SOURCE: LWA/Dann
Tardif/The Stock Market.
and express their ideas about
the world through drawings. XXX
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

Although the ability to represent objects and events symbolically is a significant advance,
preoperational thinking is limited in a number of ways. Piaget used the term preopera-
tional stage because preschool children lack the ability to do some of the logical operations
he observed in older children. Before examining the limitations of preoperational thinking,
let’s consider the important cognitive advances of this stage.

Semiotic or Representational Thinking During the preoperational stage, children can use symbols
representational as a tool to think about their environment. The ability to use a word (e.g., cookies, milk) to
thinking is the stand for a real object that is not present is called symbolic or representational thinking.
ability to use Piaget suggested that one of the earliest forms of representational thinking was deferred
words to stand imitation, which first appears toward the end of the sensorimotor period. Deferred imita-
for (symbolize) tion refers to the ability to repeat a simple sequence of actions or sounds several hours or
an object that is days after they were originally produced. Piaget (1962) observed the following example of
not present or deferred imitation with his daughter:
events not
directly Jacqueline (1 year, 4 months) has a visit from a 1.5-year-old boy whom she used to see
experienced. from time to time, and who, in the course of the afternoon, got into a terrible temper. He
screamed as he tried to get out of the playpen and pushed it backward, stamping his feet.
Jacqueline stood watching him in amazement, never having witnessed such a scene before.
The next day, she herself screamed in her playpen and tried to move it, stamping her feet
lightly several times in succession. (p. 62)

The ability to Several new examples of representational thinking appear during the preoperational stage.
repeat a sequence The preschool years are often considered the “golden age” of symbolic play (Singer & Singer,
of actions or 1976). Symbolic play begins with simple sequences of behavior using real objects, such as
sounds several pretending to drink from a cup or to eat with a spoonlike object. By 4 years of age, children
hours or days can invent their own props, make up a story line, and assume various social roles. Consider
after they were how these 4-year-olds are learning to negotiate social relationships in the following example
originally made of pretend play from Vivian Gussin Paley’s (1988) Bad Guys Don’t Have Birthdays:
is called deferred
imitation. Barney: Keep makin’ gold. You’re the walkout guards and the
goldmakers. Don’t forget, I’m the guard that controls the guns.
Frederick: But we control the guns when you sleep.
Barney: No. You make the gold and I control the guns. Anyway, I’m not
sleeping, because there’s bad guys coming. Calling all guards!
Stuart get on. You wanna be a guard? Bad guys! They see the
ship because it’s already in the sun.
Mollie: No bad guys, Barney, the baby is sleeping.
Barney: There hasta be bad guys, Mollie. We gots the cannons.
Mollie: You can’t shoot when the baby is sleeping.
Barney: Who’s the baby? We didn’t say a baby.
Mollie: It’s Christopher. Come on, baby Starlite. Lie down over here.
Barney: Say no, Christopher. You can be the Boy Scout brother. Say no,
say no.
Christopher: I gotta shoot bad guys for awhile, okay, Mollie? (p. 19)
 Focus on Teaching
Should Superheros Be Banned from the Classroom?

Children’s involvement in superhero play is a growing concern of teachers and

parents. Many believe that permitting children to play Ninja Turtles, Power
Rangers, and Buzz Light Year can increase young children’s aggressive tenden-
cies. In Chapter 7, we will discuss the influence of television violence on the de-
velopment of aggression in children. For the most part, this research suggests
that the effects of television violence are not straightforward. Research also sug-
gests that superhero play makes up less than 5 percent of play time in early child-
hood settings, and generally only a few children, mostly boys, engage in this type
of play. (Boyd, 1997). Studies further suggest that teachers and children often
have differing perspectives on superhero play. Teachers tend to see these behav-
iors as “aggressive,” whereas children see them as playful. Interviews with
preschool teachers reveal that superhero play is often equated with adolescent
violence and gang activity. However, there is no evidence connecting superhero
play to violent behavior in later development. Furthermore, researchers argue that
fantasy play may help children to work through issues related to power and con-
trol (Carlsson-Paige & Levin, 1991). Banning superhero play from the classroom
or playground can send the message to children that they need to hide their in-
terests from adults, and teachers may lose an opportunity to help children ex-
press concerns about power and control. This is not to say that educators should
not help children learn from their superhero friends. There are resources available
to help teachers support and use superhero play effectively in their classroom
(see Greenberg, 1995; Gronlund, 1992; Levin, 1994).

For the most part, children’s pretend play reflects real events in their lives (e.g., playing
house, going to the store, going on a trip), but pretend play involving fantasy and superhero
characters is very appealing to young children as well. As discussed in the Focus on Teach-
ing box, many parents and educators have become vocal opponents of superhero play in the
classroom. However, many experts believe that pretend play is important for the develop-
ment of children’s language, cognitive, and social skills. It also helps to foster their cre-
ativity and imagination.
Piaget believed that the development of representational thinking enables children to ac-
quire language. The preschool years are a period of rapid language development, with most
children saying their first words around their second birthday and increasing their vocabu- In Piaget’s
lary to approximately 2,000 words by the age of 4. We will discuss language development view, the
in detail in Chapter 5; for now, it is important to understand its connection to representa- development of
tional thinking. When babies first begin to talk, they use words that refer to ongoing activ- representational
ities and events and immediately present desires. During the preoperational period, thinking allows
children begin to use words in a truly representational way. Rather than focusing exclu- children to
sively on ongoing activities or immediate desires, children begin to use words to stand for acquire
absent objects and past events (Ginsburg & Opper, 1988). In other words, children use language.
words to refer to events they are not experiencing directly. Piaget believed that representa-
tional thinking facilitates the rapid development of language in the preoperational period.
That is, thinking precedes language development in Piaget’s view.

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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

During the preoperational period, children also begin to represent their world through
pictures and images, leading some experts to refer to children’s art as the “silent language.”
By studying children’s art, we can learn much about their thinking and feelings. For exam-
ple, 2- and 3-year-old children, when asked what they are drawing or painting, are likely to
respond, “I’m just drawing.” By age 3 or 4, however, children begin to combine marks to
make squares, crosses, circles, and other geometric shapes. Children enter the representa-
tional stage of drawing around the age of 4 or 5. They draw houses, animals, people, car-
toon characters, and other objects. Their figures may represent real objects in their
environment or fantasy characters they have heard about or seen. The Focus on Develop-
ment box shows this developmental progression in children’s drawings. As they develop,
children add more and more detail to their drawings, including words that tell the story line.
By the time they enter kindergarten, some children can write their own names. Now,
printed words as well as pictures can stand for a real object in a child’s environment.

Number Concepts Along with an increased ability to use words and images as symbols,
children begin to use numbers as a tool for thinking during the preschool years. Piaget ar-
gued that children do not acquire a true concept of numbers until the concrete operational
stage when they begin to understand serial and hierarchical relations. However, recent re-
search has indicated that some basic number principles begin to appear during preopera-
tions. Research by Rochel Gelman and her associates (Gelman & Gallistel, 1978; Gelman
& Meck, 1983) suggests that some 4-year-olds can understand the following basic princi-
ples of counting: (a) any array of items can be counted; (b) each item should be counted
only once; (c) numbers should be assigned in the same order; (d) the order in which objects
are counted is irrelevant; and (e) the last spoken number word is the number of items in that
set. Preschool children also have some basic understanding of number relationships. Most
3- and 4-year-olds, for example, know that 3 is more than 2. In addition, preschool children
seem to have an intuitive understanding of addition and subtraction.
Although preschoolers are beginning to understand basic number concepts, it is impor-
tant to keep in mind that they will make plenty of counting errors. They may skip numbers
(e.g., 1, 2, 3, 5), miss items while counting, and so on. In addition, most preschool and early
elementary children have difficulty counting large groups of disorganized items (Baroody,
1987). It is also difficult for preschool children to count beyond 10 in English, because the
teen-number words do not follow their 1 to 10 counterparts. Learning to count beyond 10
is easier for children who speak Japanese, Chinese, or Korean (see Focus on Research).

Intuitive Theories Young children are known for their curiosity and inquisitiveness. Dur-
Preoperational ing the preschool years, children begin to form intuitive theories about natural phenomena.
children have an Piaget (1951) interviewed young children to find out how they explained events, such as the
animistic origins of trees, the movement of clouds, the beginning of the sun and moon, and the con-
conception of the cept of life. He found that young children’s conceptions of the world are characterized by
world; they do animism; that is, they do not distinguish between animate (living) and inanimate (mechan-
not distinguish ical) objects, and they attribute intentional states and human characteristics to inanimate ob-
between animate jects. For example, a 3-year-old may say that the sun is hot because it wants to keep people
and inanimate warm or that trees lose their leaves because they want to change the way they look. Rocks,
objects. trees, fires, rivers, cars, and bicycles are all judged to have lifelike characteristics because
they move. The following example illustrates this animistic thinking, according to Piaget:

Zimm (7 years, 9 months; child’s responses in italics). Is a cat alive? Yes. A snail? Yes. A
table? No. Why not? It can’t move. Is a bicycle alive? Yes. Why? It can go. Is a cloud alive?
Yes. Why? It sometimes moves. Is water alive? Yes, it moves. Is it alive when it does not
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Focus on Development
Developmental Progression of Children’s Drawings

Placement stage Age 32 months

(scribbles)

Basic shapes Age 42 months

(circle)

Design stage Age 40 and 47 months

(combination design)

Pictoral stage Age 45 months

(sun)

Pictoral stage Age 48 to 60 months

(humans)

SOURCE: After Kellogg (1970)

move? Yes. Is a bicycle alive when it isn’t moving? Yes, it’s alive, even when it doesn’t
move. Is a lamp alive? Yes, it shines. Is the moon alive? Yes, sometimes it hides behind the Basic number
mountains. (Piaget 1951, p. 199) concepts begin to
emerge during
In constructing their beliefs, children draw on their own personal experiences and obser- the preschool
vations. The term intuitive is often applied to the preoperational stage, because the child’s years.
reasoning is based on immediate experiences.
 Focus on Research
Learning Place Value: Does Language Make a Difference?

International comparisons of mathematics achievement consistently show large

differences in favor of Asian students. Research studies have shown that the su-
perior performance of Asian students in abstract counting and in understanding
place value may already be apparent by the first grade. Differences in children’s
understanding of number concepts may be due to differences in the number
words. In most languages, the numbers 1 to 10 are arbitrary, and the numbers af-
ter 20 have a regular pattern (twenty-one, thirty-two, etc). English, French, and
Swedish children have a difficult time learning the number words from 11 to 20,
because the teen-numbers do not match their 1 to 10 counterparts. In Japanese,
the numbers from 11 to 20 follow a regular pattern, and they are composed of
“ten” plus the single number. For example, in Japanese the number 10 is juu and
the number 2 is ni. The word for twelve is juu-ni (“ten-two”). The number words for
11 to 20 also follow this pattern in Chinese and Korean.
Do the number words for 11 to 20 give Asian children an advantage in learning
to count? Studies show no differences in children’s counting performance through
the age of 3 when learning is focused on acquiring the first 10 number words.
However, around the time children begin to learn the teen words large differences
appear. Learning to count beyond 10 is considerably easier for children who speak
some Chinese, Japanese, or Korean because the number words for 11 to 20 fol-
low a regular pattern (e.g., “ten-one,” “ten-two,” etc.). In addition, studies reveal
that Asian children have less difficulty than U.S. children in understanding place
value because the number names in their languages explicitly state each number’s
composition (“ten-five”). By the time Asian children are 6 years old, they have little
difficulty making models of multidigits using 10 blocks and units. For example,
they can represent the number 54 with 5 ten blocks and 4 unit blocks. In contrast,
U.S. children showed a preference for representing whole numbers in terms of in-
dividual units rather than units of 10. Asian number words may help children in
those countries to learn place value at a younger age than U.S. children who, even
by the third grade, have difficulty identifying correctly the value of numerals in dif-
ferent positions (e.g., in the one place, tens place, and hundreds place).
This research has important implications for education. To help children acquire
a sense of number and place value, teachers might use counting words that re-
semble Asian languages, such “ten-one,” “ten-two,” “ten-three” as a different way
of saying eleven, twelve, and thirteen. Children also need opportunities to work
with math manipulatives that provide opportunities to organize large numbers of
items into units of 10s.

SOURCE: Adapted from Miura, Okamoto, Kim, Steere, & Fayol (1993).

However, recent studies reveal that children’s intuitive understandings of their physical
and biological concepts are a little more sophisticated than Piaget believed. In the area of
physics, research suggests that young children have a naive understanding of atomic the-
ory of matter—objects are composed of tiny bits of matter (Carey, 1991). Four-year-olds
understand that you cannot pour water into a box that is already filled with a steel block.
132
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

• Sugar ceases to exist when placed in water.

• Clouds or the earth’s shadow causes the phases of the moon.

• Plants get their food from the soil.

• Light travels farther at night than in the day.

• Shadows are made out of matter.

• Heavier objects fall faster.

FIGURE 3.2
• Electric current is used in a light bulb. Elementary School
Students’ Naive
• The world is flat. Conceptions in
Science
• Coldness causes rust. SOURCES: After Driver,
Guesne, & Tiberghien
• If you add warm water to an equal amount of warm water, you get water that is (1985) and Hyde & Bizar
twice as warm. (1989).

Preschoolers can also attribute the snuffing out of a candle to a fan that was turned on
rather than one turned off. Other research suggests that preschool children have also de-
veloped concepts about the earth’s shape, the movement of the planets, and so on. Along
these same lines, toddlers and preschoolers have acquired some rudimentary biological
conceptions as well. Preschool children can distinguish inanimate from living objects, con-
trary to Piaget’s suggestion, and they are beginning to develop an understanding of biolog-
ical properties. Recent research suggests that preschool children recognize that plants, like
people, can grow, heal, and decompose (Wellman & Gelman, 1998). Preschool children
also have a rudimentary understanding of inheritance. They expect, for example, that ani-
mals of the same family share certain physical properties. Additionally, they understand
that an infant calf that comes from a cow will grow up “to moo” and “to have a straight
tail,” even if it is raised among pigs.
However, young children have many misconceptions of their intuitive physical and bi-
ological worlds that can have a lasting influence on their learning. When children are pre-
sented factual information in school this information is often assimilated into the naive or
commonsense theories they have already formed about the world. For example, Eaton, An-
derson, and Smith (1984) found that after 6 weeks of science lessons on light and vision,
most of the fifth-graders in their study held onto their naive conceptions: We see things be-
cause light shines on them and brightens them. According to these researchers, the teach-
ers seemed to do everything right in presenting scientific explanations, but they did not
directly confront their students’ naive conceptions of light. Figure 3.2 lists other examples
of children’s naive theories in science. These schemes for explaining natural events may
persist, unless children’s naive conceptions are confronted directly.
Just as children begin to develop theories of the external world during the preoperational
period, they also begin to develop theories about the internal world of the mind. Piaget
(1963) proposed that children confuse mental and real events. This confusion was most ev-
ident when children were asked to explain the origins of dreams (e.g., Where do dreams
come from?). For preoperational thinkers, dreams are external events that can be seen by
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

other people. Piaget used the term realism to describe the young child’s tendency to con-
fuse physical and psychological events.
Preschool Current research indicates that preschoolers’ knowledge of the mind is more sophisti-
children cated than Piaget originally suggested (Wellman & Gelman, 1998). According to Henry
understand that Wellman (1990), most 3-year-olds understand that internal wishes and desires can cause a
the mind can person to act a certain way. Most 3- to 5-year-olds also know it’s not possible to touch or eat
think, remember, cookies that are in a person’s dreams, and they know dreams can be about impossible events,
and dream. such as a dog flying (Wellman & Estes, 1986). When asked to name things the mind can do,
4- and 5-year-olds say that the mind can think, remember, and dream. By this age, children
can also distinguish between their own knowledge and that of others (Wellman, 1990).
Although children are beginning to develop a theory of mind in the preoperational stage,
they have a very limited understanding of thinking processes and memory. Preschool chil-
dren, for example, believe they can remember everything they see and hear. Between the
ages of 8 and 10, children begin to acquire what is known as metacognitive knowledge.
Metacognition is “thinking about thinking,” and it plays a very important role in children’s
cognitive development during the middle childhood years. We will discuss how metacog-
Preoperational nition influences children’s cognitive development when we explore information process-
thinking is ing theories.
limited because
it is egocentric, Limitations of Preoperational Thinking So far we have discussed the important ad-
rigid, and vances in children’s thinking during the preoperational period. Let’s turn to some of the
centered on only limitations of preoperational thinking. The three main cognitive limitations of this stage are
one aspect of a egocentrism, centration, and rigidity of thinking.
stimulus. Egocentrism refers to the tendency to “perceive, understand, and interpret the world in
terms of the self” (Miller, 1993, p. 53). This egocentrism is particularly evident in the con-
versations of preschoolers. Because young children are unable to take the perspective of
others, they make little effort to modify their speech for the listener. Three-year-olds seem
to have what are called collective monologues, in which their remarks to each other are un-
related. By 4 and 5 years of age, children begin to show some ability to adjust their com-
munication to the perspective of their listeners.
Piaget and Inhelder (1956) used the famous mountain task to study the egocentrism of
young children. A model of a landscape containing three mountains was placed on top of a
table with four chairs arranged around the table. For the study, a child sat in one chair and
was asked to choose from a group of drawings the one that best described how the moun-
tains might look to a person sitting in another chair. This study found that most children
under the age of 7 or 8 picked the drawing that showed how the mountains looked to them,
not how the mountain might look to someone sitting in another chair.
Some researchers have claimed that the mountain task is not a fair test of children’s per-
spective-taking abilities. To do this task, children must be able to rotate objects in a spatial
arrangement. When a simplified form of this task is used, preschoolers seem to be less ego-
centric than Piaget claimed. For example, most 3-year-olds understand that if a picture of
an object is held vertically facing them, they can see the depicted object, but someone sit-
ting opposite them cannot, as Figure 3.3 shows. This later research suggests that an under-
standing that two people can have different perspectives of the same object develops
between the ages of 3 and 4 (Flavell, 1985).
Another limitation of preoperational thinking is centration. Centration means that
young children tend to focus or center their attention on only one aspect of a stimulus.
Other features of the stimulus are ignored. As will be discussed later, centration explains
why children have difficulty performing conservation tasks. Suppose you show a 4-year-
old two identical glasses containing the same amount of water and then pour the contents
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

FIGURE 3.3
Perspective-Taking
Task
Which child can see the cat?

of one glass into a tall, thin glass. When asked, “Which glass has more?” the child will fo-
cus on the height of the water and choose the taller glass. Other dimensions of the glass,
such as its width, will be ignored.
This example illustrates another limitation of preoperational thought. Young children’s
thinking tends to be very rigid. In the previous example, the child is focusing on “before”
and “after” states rather than the transformation process. With development, children’s
thinking becomes less rigid, and they begin to consider how transformations (pouring the
contents of one glass into another glass) can be reversed. The ability to mentally reverse
operations is a characteristic of the next stage of cognitive development known as concrete
operations.
Until children have developed some mental operations, such as reversibility, they tend
to base their judgments of quantity on perceptual appearances rather than reality. If a glass
looks like it has more water, young children assume it has more. Flavell and his associates
(Flavell, Green, & Flavell, 1986) studied children’s understanding of appearances and re-
ality. They found that the ability to distinguish appearance from reality develops between
the ages of 3 and 5. When 3-year-olds are shown a sponge that looks like a rock, they be-
lieve it really is a rock. If a cloth smells like an orange, then it is an orange. This tendency
to confuse reality and appearances is what makes Halloween a scary event for most 3-year- The ability to
olds and some 4-year-olds. If a person looks like a monster, then that person must be a think logically
monster! By age 5, most children begin to distinguish between appearances and reality. and perform
mental
operations
Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 Years) allows concrete
In the elementary years, children begin to use mental operations and logic to think about operational
events and objects in their environment. For example, if asked to arrange a set of five sticks children to
according to size, concrete operational thinkers can mentally compare the objects and then approach
draw logical inferences about the correct order without physically performing the actions. problems more
This ability to use logic and mental operations allows concrete operational children to ap- systematically
proach problems more systematically than a preoperational child. than
According to Piaget, there are several advances in children’s thinking during the con- preoperational
crete operational stage. First, their thinking appears to be less rigid and more flexible. The children.
child understands that operations can be mentally reversed or negated. That is, you can
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

XXX
XXX
SOURCE: Mary Kate
Denny/Photo Edit.

XXX
XXXX

change a stimulus, such as the water poured into the thin beaker, back to its original state
by reversing the action. Along these same lines, the child’s thinking appears to be less cen-
trated and egocentric. The grade schoolchild can attend to several characteristics of a stim-
ulus at the same time. Rather than focusing exclusively on static states, the child is now
able to make inferences about the nature of transformations. Finally, concrete operational
thinkers no longer base their judgments on the appearances of things.
Let’s take a closer look at the three types of mental operations or schemes children use
to organize and make sense of their world during concrete operations: seriation, classifica-
tion, and conservation.

Seriation, a Seriation Seriation involves the ability to order objects in a logical progression, such as
mental operation from shortest to tallest. Seriation is important for understanding the concepts of numbers,
that appears in time, and measurement. For example, most preschoolers have a limited concept of time. In
the concrete their minds, 2 minutes is the same as 20 minutes or 200 minutes. In contrast, elementary
operations stage, schoolchildren can order concepts of time in terms of increasing or decreasing quantity. For
involves the them, 20 minutes is fewer than 200 minutes, but more than 2 minutes.
ability to order In one of his experiments, Piaget asked children to order a series of sticks like the ones
objects in a shown in Figure 3.4. At ages 3 and 4, children can find the longest and shortest sticks. They
logical seem to understand the logical rule of progressive change—that is, items can be ordered
progression. in terms of increasing and decreasing size—but they have difficulty constructing an or-
dered sequence of three or more sticks. To succeed at this task, the children must perform
two mental operations simultaneously. They must select the appropriate stick by thinking
about how long or short it is in relation to the sticks already used as well as to those that re-
main. Preschool children are unable to perform this task because they focus on one dimen-
sion at a time (i.e., their thinking is centrated). The ability to coordinate two pieces of
 137
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Can you put these In concrete operations,

sticks in order from children can order a series
shortest to longest? of sticks according to size.

FIGURE 3.4
Seriation Task

information simultaneously develops gradually during the early elementary years, when
children’s thinking begins to be characterized less by centration.
In order to solve seriation problems, children must also apply the logical rule of tran-
sitivity. Part of the problem for young elementary children is that they do not understand
that objects in the middle of a series are both shorter and longer than others. Older children
can mentally construct relations among objects. They can infer the relationship between
two objects by knowing its relationship to a third. For example, if they know stick A is
shorter than stick B, and stick B is shorter than stick C, then A must be shorter than C. This
answer is a logical deduction based on the rule of transitivity (A  B and B  C, thus A 
C). According to Piaget’s theory, an understanding of transitivity is acquired between the
ages of 7 and 11.
Piaget believed
Classification In addition to seriation, Piaget believed that classification skills are cen- classification
tral to the development of concrete operations. Classification is another way children can skills are
impose order on their environment by grouping things and ideas according to common el- central to the
ements. Classification is a skill that begins to emerge in early childhood. Toddlers and development
preschoolers can generally group objects according to a single dimension, such as size or of concrete
color. However, it is not until the concrete operational period that children classify objects operations.
according to multiple dimensions or understand relations between classes of objects. Piaget
described two different types of classification systems that develop during middle child-
hood as matrix and hierarchical classification.
Matrix classification involves classifying items by two or more attributes, as shown in Matrix
Figure 3.5. We already know that preschool children can group objects according to single classification
dimensions. What would happen, however, if you gave a group of children objects of dif- involves sorting
ferent shapes and colors to sort? Piaget found that young preschool children sort things cor- items by two or
rectly along one dimension, either shape or size. A slightly more advanced preschool child more attributes;
might then subdivide each of the color groups along the second dimension. This behavior hierarchical
suggests that children are in a transition stage. They notice more than one dimension but classification
are unable to coordinate this information. By age 8 or 9, children will demonstrate the abil- involves
ity to sort objects using two dimensions simultaneously. understanding
Piaget believed that centration places a greater constraint on younger than on older chil- the ways in which
dren’s classification skills. Young children tend to group things based on their similarities; parts are related
differences between objects are typically ignored. Older children are able to consider how to the whole.
objects may be similar and different at the same time. The ability to classify objects ac-
cording to two dimensions also requires reversibility in thinking. This ability to mentally
reverse an operation allows a child to first classify an object by one dimension (color) and
then reclassify it by a second attribute (shape or size). Older elementary school children are
able to handle this problem, because they are becoming more flexible in their thinking.
During the later elementary school years, children also begin to use hierarchical clas-
sification systems for imposing order on their environment. Such classification systems are
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

FIGURE 3.5
Matrix
Classification Task
What is the color and what is the
shape of the missing object?

used to organize information about geology, biology, astronomy, history, physics, music,
and so forth. By sixth grade, for instance, children are expected to know that all matter is
composed of molecules, and each molecule is made up of atoms, which carry different
units of protons, electrons, and neutrons. The child must also be able to reason about hier-
archical relations in order to understand number concepts. For example, the number 5 is
part of a set that also includes the numbers preceding it (1, 2, 3, and 4). The number 1 can
be divided into several different parts (halves, quarters, tenths, etc.), and the number 100 is
made up of 10 groups of tens. During the concrete operational stage, children begin to un-
derstand hierarchical relations.
The standard test for assessing children’s understanding of hierarchies is the class in-
clusion task. A child is shown pictures of two different animals, say three dogs and seven
cats, and then asked, “Are there more cats or more animals?” (see Figure 3.6). Most 5- and
6-year-olds say there are more cats. They typically compare the subclasses (dogs and cats)
and do not grasp that they make up a larger class (animals). To answer correctly, children
have to think about the subsets in relation to the whole. Around the age of 8 or 9, children
begin to base their responses on the logical rule of class inclusion. They now understand
that a total collection of items must be larger than any one of its subparts and use this log-
ical operation to organize information in class inclusion problems. Before children have ac-
quired an understanding of class inclusion, they may have difficulty understanding
part-whole relations in math, science, reading, and many other subjects.
Conservation
Conservation According to Piaget’s theory, the ability to reason about conservation
involves the
problems was the major hallmark of the concrete operational stage. Conservation involves
understanding
the understanding that an entity remains the same despite superficial changes in its form or
that an entity
physical appearance. During the concrete operational stage, children no longer base their
remains the
reasoning on the physical appearance of objects. They recognize that a transformed object
same despite
may seem to have more or less of the quantity in question, but it may not. In other words,
superficial
appearances can be misleading.
changes in its
Piaget examined children’s understanding of five types of conservation: number, liquid,
form or physical
substance (mass), length, and volume. Examples of these conservation tasks are shown in
appearance.
the Focus on Development box. Although these tasks differ with respect to the dimension
that is to be conserved, the basic paradigm is the same. In general, a child is shown two
 139
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

FIGURE 3.6
Are There More
Dogs or Animals?
Preschool children respond that there are more cats, because they compare the two groups. They do
not understand that each group also belongs to a larger class (animals).

identical sets of objects, such as identical rows of coins, identical amounts of clay, or iden-
tical glasses of water. After the child agrees that the objects are the same, one object is
transformed in a way that changes its appearance but not the basic dimension of interest.
For example, in the conservation-of-number task, one row of coins is shortened or length-
ened. The child is allowed to observe this transformation. The child is then asked to state
whether the dimension of interest (quantity, mass, area, etc.) is still the same.
Children who have entered the concrete operational stage will reply that the set of ob-
jects is still the same. One object may look bigger, longer, or heavier, but the two objects
are really the same. According to Piaget, children use three basic mental operations to per-
form conservation tasks: negation, compensation, and identity. These mental operations
are reflected in the ways an 8-year-old might explain why the amount of water in two dif-
ferent glasses remained the same:

“You could pour it back and it will be the same.” (negation)

“The water goes up higher, but the glass is skinnier.” (compensation)

“You just poured it, nothing was added or taken away.” (identity) (Miller, 1993, p. 57)

Between the ages of 7 and 11, children acquire the mental operations needed to think about
the transformations represented in conservation problems. When children can reason logi-
cally about number, mass, and volume without being confused by physical appearances,
they are capable of reflective abstraction. They can separate the invariant characteristics of
stimuli (e.g., weight, number, volume) from how the object may appear to them.
The acquisition of the mental operations used to perform conservation tasks does not
take place at the same time in all areas. Children’s understanding of conservation problems
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

Focus on Development
Development of Conservation Concepts

Children’s Understanding of Conservation Problems

CONSERVATION BASIC TEST FOR CONSERVATION SKILLS

SKILL PRINCIPLE Step 1 Step 2

The number of units

Number in a collection remains
(Ages 5 to 7) unchanged even though Two rows of pennies One of the rows
the units are rearranged arranged in one-to-one elongated or
in space. correspondence contracted

The amount of a
Substances malleable, plastic-like
(Ages 7 to 8) material remains
Modeling clay in two One of the balls rolled
unchanged regardless
balls of the same size into a long, narrow shape
of the shape it assumes.

The length of a line or

an object from one end
Length to the other end remains
(Ages 7 to 8) unchanged regardless
of how it is rearranged Strips of cloth placed Strips of cloth placed
in space or changed in in a straight line in altered shapes
shape.

The total amount of

surface covered by a
Area
set of plane figures
(Ages 8 to 9)
remains unchanged
regardless of the
position of the figures. Square units placed on
top of each other Square unit rearranged

The heaviness of
Weight an object remains
(Ages 9 to 10) unchanged regardless
of the shape that Units placed on Units placed side
it assumes. top of each other by side

The space occupied

Volume by an object remains
unchanged regardless Displacement of Displacement of
(Ages 12 to 14)
of a change in its water by object water by object
shape. placed vertically placed horizontally
in the water in the water

SOURCE: After Vander Zanden (1993).

 141
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

follows a developmental sequence (see Focus on Development). Children generally acquire

the ability to conserve numbers between the ages of 5 and 7. The ability to conserve area
and weight develops between the ages of 8 and 10. Most children are unable to perform
conservation of volume tasks until 10 or 11 years. Piaget referred to this inconsistency of
children’s thinking within a stage as horizontal decalage.

Formal Operational Stage (11 to 12 Years and Onward)

Having the ability to handle problems like seriation, classification, and conservation, chil- As children enter
dren from about 11- or 12-years-old begin to develop a coherent system of formal logic. By the formal
the end of the concrete operational period, they have the cognitive tools for solving many operations stage,
types of logical problems, for understanding conceptual relations among mathematical op- their thinking
erations (e.g., 15  8  10  13), and for ordering and classifying bodies of knowledge. begins to
During adolescence, the mental operations that emerged in previous stages are organized differentiate
into a more elaborate system of logic and abstract ideas. between the real
The most important change that occurs during the formal operations stage is that chil- (concrete) and
dren’s thinking shifts from the real to the possible (Flavell, 1985). Older elementary the possible
schoolchildren can reason logically but only about people, places, and things that are tan- (abstract).
gible and concrete. In contrast, adolescents can think about things they have never experi-
enced (e.g., When you read this story, try to imagine what it might have been like to be a
slave in the 1850s.); they can generate ideas about events that never happened (e.g., What
would Europe be like today if Germany had won World War II?); and they can make pre-
dictions about hypothetical or future events (e.g., Suppose the federal government passed
a bill to ban the death penalty. What would happen to the crime rate?). Older adolescents
can discuss complex social and political issues involving abstract ideas such as human The ability to
rights, equality, and justice. They can also reason about proportional relations and analo- think abstractly
gies, solve algebraic equations and geometric proofs, and analyze the inherent validity of and reflectively is
an argument. called formal
The ability to think abstractly and reflectively occurs during the formal operational operations.
stage. In the following sections, we look at four key characteristics of formal operational
thinking: propositional logic, scientific reasoning, combinatorial reasoning, and reasoning
about probabilities and proportions.

Propositional Logic Adult mental operations correspond to a certain type of logical op-
eration called propositional logic, which Piaget believed was central to formal operational
thinking. Propositional logic involves the ability to draw a logical inference based on the
relationship between two statements or premises. In everyday language, propositional logic
can be expressed in a series of if/then statements. Consider the following example:

If babies are older than adults;

And babies are older than children;
Then adults are older than children.

The conclusion is factually correct but invalid, because it does not follow from the infor-
mation that preceded it. David Moshman and Bridget Franks (1986) found that elementary
schoolchildren tend to evaluate the above conclusion on the basis of its factual truth rather
than the validity of the argument. As children enter formal operations, however, they begin
to consider the inherent validity of the argument, regardless of its factual truth. The con-
clusion may be factually correct, but some adolescents would question the validity of the
argument.
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

For formal operational thinkers, the validity of the argument has to do more with the
Propositional way the statements are related than with the truthfulness of the content. According to Pi-
logic is more aget, formal operational reasoning involves thinking about the logical relationships among
concerned with propositions. Formal operational thinkers seem to understand that logical arguments have
the logical a “disembodied, passionless life of their own, at least in principle” (Flavell, 1985, p. 101).
relationship Many types of problem-solving situations involve the use of propositional logic. Solv-
between two ing algebra problems, for example, involves the ability to think about propositional state-
statements or ments (e.g., x  2y  11; if y  1, then x  _____?). Propositional logic is also essential
premises than for reasoning about scientific problems, such as determining how to classify an animal or
with their plant (e.g., If all mammals nurse their young and this animal nurses its young, then it must
accuracy or be a mammal.).
truth. Good writers, lawyers, politicians, and teachers use propositional logic when they want
to argue a point. When adolescents acquire this ability, be prepared. They not only become
more argumentative, but also better arguers. They can find the fallacies in your logic and
come back with the appropriate counterargument.

Scientific Reasoning As adolescents develop their use of propositional logic, they ap-
proach problems in a more systematic manner. They can form hypotheses, determine how
to test each one against the facts, and rule out those that prove to be wrong. Piaget called
the ability to generate and test hypotheses in a logical and systematic manner hypothetico-
deductive thinking.
To study the development of this type of thinking, Piaget used the pendulum task shown
in Figure 3.7. In this experiment, a child is given a rod from which strings of different
lengths are suspended. Different size weights can be easily attached to each string. The
child is shown how the pendulum works, and then asked which of four factors—length of
string, weight of object, force of push, or height of drop—is responsible for the speed at
which the pendulum swings. They are allowed to experiment with the apparatus before
stating their answer.

XXX
XXX
SOURCE: Cleve
Bryant/Photo Edit.
 143
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

5 10
grams grams

2
grams

What makes the pendulum swing faster? The four factors involved are the
length of the string, the weight of the pendulum, the height from which the
pendulum is released, and the force with which the pendulum is pushed. FIGURE 3.7
Pendulum Task

What do you think the correct answer is? How would you approach this problem? The
first step is to generate a hypothesis or make a prediction. Concrete operational thinkers are
able to use this problem-solving strategy. The next step involves testing the hypothesis.
This step generally separates the concrete from the formal operational thinker. The trick is
to change one of the problem’s factors or variables while holding all others constant. Con-
crete operational thinkers often get off to a good start but fail to test all possible combina- Hypothetico-
tions. They may also change more than one variable at the same time (e.g., the string and deductive
the weight). Because they do not approach the problem systematically, concrete operational thinking is the
thinkers often draw the wrong conclusion when there are multiple variables to consider. In ability to
contrast, the formal operational thinker typically thinks about all possible combinations of generate and test
variables. In this example, there are 16 different combinations that should be considered to hypotheses in a
draw the correct conclusion. The correct answer, of course, is the length of string. A short logical and
string makes the pendulum go faster, regardless of all other factors. systematic
manner.
Combinatorial Reasoning Another characteristic of formal operations is the ability to
think about multiple causes. Suppose you give elementary and secondary students four
plastic chips of different colors and ask them to put the chips together in as many different
ways as possible. Children are likely to combine only two chips at the same time. Few will
be able to do this task in any systematic way. Adolescents, on the other hand, may develop
a way of representing all the possible combinations, including combinations of three and
four chips. They are also more likely than children to produce these combinations system-
atically. This process is known as combinatorial reasoning.
Piaget and Inhelder (1956) used a chemistry experiment to study children’s and adoles-
cents’ ability to use combinatorial logic. Figure 3.8 shows this experiment, in which chil-
dren must combine liquids from different bottles to create a yellow solution. When the
liquids from two bottles are combined with the g liquid, the solution turns yellow. Liquid
from one of the bottles has no effect, and liquid from a fourth bottle can turn the solution
clear. Concrete operational children generally take a drop of liquid from each of the four
bottles and combine it with the g liquid one by one. If nothing happens, they think they
have exhausted all possibilities. If they are told to combine liquids, they may do so but not
in a systematic way. Formal operational thinkers go beyond testing each liquid one at a
144
Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

1 2 3 4 g

+ + =

? ? g Yellow
liquid

Two of the clear liquids in the four beakers when combined with liquid
g produce a yellow solution. How would you solve this problem?

FIGURE 3.8 Chemistry Task

time. They combine the liquids systematically (1  2  g, 1  3  g, 1  4  g, etc.), un-

til they find the combination that turns the solution yellow when g is added. Some adoles-
cents may even go on to speculate about which liquids would combine to turn the solution
clear again.

Reasoning about Probabilities and Proportions Elementary-aged children generally

have a limited understanding of probability. Piaget’s theory helps to explain why. Figure
3.9 shows a bubble gum machine with 30 red balls and 50 yellow balls. If a child inserts a
coin into the machine, which color gumball is most likely to come out? A concrete opera-
tional thinker is likely to say “yellow,” because there are more yellow than red balls. This
child focuses on the absolute difference between the two quantities. Formal operational
thinkers will mentally represent the problem differently. They will think about the problem
in terms of the ratio of red to yellow balls. Adolescents are more likely to say that the child
has a higher likelihood of getting a yellow ball, because there is a higher proportion of yel-
lows to reds. A ratio is not something a person can see; it is an inferred relationship be-
tween two quantities. This example illustrates how concrete and formal thinkers may
answer a question the same way, but they use a qualitatively different system of logic.
Some theorists contend that Piaget’s research may have overestimated the ability of ado-
lescents to reason about proportions. There is some evidence to suggest that even adults
may not use a proportional reasoning strategy when solving practical problems. In one
study, researchers asked 50 women in a supermarket to judge which of two sizes of the
same product was a better buy (Capon & Kuhn, 1979). One bottle of garlic powder con-
tained 1.25 ounces and sold for 41 cents, whereas the second bottle contained 2.37 ounces
and sold for 77 cents. The women were given pencil and paper and told to justify their re-
sponses. The most direct way to do this problem is to compute the price of garlic powder
per ounce for each bottle, and then compare the amounts. This strategy involves reasoning
about proportions, which, according to Piaget’s theory, is a characteristic of formal opera-
tions. Capon and Kuhn’s supermarket study reported that fewer than 30 percent of the
women used a proportional reasoning strategy when comparing products. Most used a
 145
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

FIGURE 3.9
Ratio Task
If you insert a coin, which color
gumball is most likely to come out?

subtraction strategy, and justified their response by saying, “With the bigger one you get 32
more ounces for 36 more cents.” Others just relied on previous experience and justified
their choices by simply saying, “The bigger one is always better or cheaper.” This study
concluded that many adults may be unable to use formal operations when solving real
world problems.
This finding will not surprise most high school teachers. Most know that their students
have difficulty with tasks involving more abstract forms of reasoning. It is estimated that
only 30 percent to 40 percent of high school students in American schools can solve formal
operational tasks (Keating, 1990). The development of formal operations is greatly influ-
enced by cultural expectations and experiences. Formal operational thinking is more preva-
lent in societies that emphasize mathematical and technical skills. Even within
scientifically oriented countries like the United States, some groups of students have
greater experience with mathematical and scientific thinking than others.

Limitations of Piaget’s Theory

Piaget’s theory is one of the most widely cited and discussed theories of cognitive devel-
opment. Piaget helped to alter the course of research on children’s development. Once re-
searchers viewed development through Piaget’s eyes, they could no longer see a child as a
passive organism molded and shaped by the environment (Miller, 1993). Although Piaget-
ian research continues to influence the way we think about children, in recent years his the-
ory has generated substantial controversy and criticism. Questions have been raised about
(a) his research methods; (b) the stagelike nature of children’s thinking; (c) the adequacy of
the equilibration models for explaining developmental changes; and (d) the universality of
Piaget’s stages (Flavell, 1985; Miller, 1993).

Concerns about Research Methods Many contemporary theorists believe that Piaget un-
derestimated younger children’s abilities due to the research methods he used. As stated ear-
lier, the tasks he used were highly complex and cognitively demanding, many requiring
sophisticated verbal skills. Critics have argued that children may have the ability to perform
 Focus on Research
Magic Mice Experiment

Rochel Gelman (1972) designed a simple task to study young children’s ability to
conserve number. In Gelman’s experiment, 3-year-olds were shown two different
plates. One plate contained three toy mice and the other plate contained two
mice. The children were told to pick the “winner” plate and the “loser” plate. Chil-
dren consistently identified the plate with three mice as the “winner.” After chil-
dren demonstrated they could correctly identify the winner and loser plates, the
experimenter “magically” changed the winner plate by taking away the middle
mouse or by pushing the mice closer together. When the children viewed the
plates again, they acted surprised. Some asked where the missing mouse had
gone. More important, they defined the winner plate by the number of mice on it
rather than by the length of the row. When the three mice in the row were pushed
together, they still called it the winner. Gelman’s magic mice study showed that
children can conserve number much earlier than Piaget claimed.

problems at higher cognitive levels but may lack the verbal skills to demonstrate their com-
Piaget’s theories petence. Thus, when nonverbal measures are used to test for the presence or absence of key
are not without concepts, the results differ from those reported by Piaget. In the infancy section, for exam-
criticism: some ple, we discussed recent research suggesting that object permanence may appear earlier than
question his Piaget claimed. We also reviewed research suggesting that 3- and 4-year-old children can
theory of perform simple visual perspective-taking tasks (see section on egocentrism). In another ex-
invariant stages, periment, Rochel Gelman (1972) found that 3-year-olds were able to understand number
others point out conservation tasks when more familiar language and a small number of objects were used.
his lack of A description of this experiment appears in the Focus on Research box. This study supports
attention to the contemporary theorists’ suggestions that children’s cognitive abilities in both infancy and
cultural context childhood were underestimated by Piaget (Gelman & Baillargeon, 1983).
in which thinking
skills develop, Concerns about the Nature of Development Piaget has received the most criticism for
and others feel his ideas about the qualitative nature of cognitive development. Some theorists have ques-
his equilibration tioned that changes in children’s cognitive systems are as “fundamental, momentous, qual-
view of itative, and stagelike as Piaget suggested” (Flavell, 1985, p. 82). Researchers have also
developmental argued that the equilibration model is inadequate for explaining advances in cognitive de-
change is velopment. There are no precise statements as to what cognitive activities actually take
inadequate. place during the process of assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration (Flavell, 1985;
Miller, 1993; Siegler, 1991).
Considerable research now suggests that stagelike changes in children’s thinking ap-
pears to be causally linked to more gradual and quantitative sorts of changes in children’s
attentional and memory capacities. This research suggests that young children may be un-
able to perform some Piagetian tasks because they fail to attend to the relevant dimensions,
to encode the appropriate information, to relate information to existing knowledge, to re-
trieve the appropriate solution from memory, and so forth (Siegler, 1991). When young
children are trained to use these cognitive processes more effectively, age differences in
children’s performances on Piagetian tasks begin to disappear. For example, non-
conservers as young as 4-years-old can perform conservation tasks when they are trained
to attend to the relevant dimensions (Gelman, 1969). Other research suggests that concrete
146
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Focus on Development
Stages in Case’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Age Range
Stage (approx.) Characteristics
1
Sensory motor Birth to 1 /2 years Mental representations are linked to
control structures physical movements.
Relational control 11/2 to 5 years Children can detect and coordinate
structures relations along one dimension among
objects, events, or people. For
example, weight is viewed as
bipolar—heavy and light.
Dimensional 5 to 11 years Children can extract the dimensions of
control structures significance in the physical and
social world. They can compare two
dimensions (e.g., height and width)
in a quantitative way.
Abstract control 11 to 181/2 years Children acquire abstract systems of
structures thought that allow them to use
proportional reasoning, solve verbal
analogy problems, and infer
psychological traits in other people.

SOURCE: After Miller (1993).

operational children can be trained to solve formal operational problems (Siegler, Robin-
son, Liebert, & Liebert, 1973). However, this learning may not transfer to other types of
formal operational tasks.
Although training studies call into question the qualitative nature of developmental
changes, the issue of stages in children’s cognitive development remains controversial
(Flavell, 1985). Some theorists contend that a stage theory of cognitive development may
still be viable (Case, 1985). Neo-Piagetian theories have attempted to add greater speci-
ficity to developmental changes, while maintaining the basic assumptions of Piaget’s the-
ory (e.g., knowledge is actively constructed, cognitive changes are stagelike, etc.). These
theories have begun to look at the role of children’s information processing capabilities in
explaining structural changes in children’s thinking. The Focus on Development box pre-
sents Robbie Case’s cognitive development model. This model links structural changes
(movement from stage to stage) to the development of cognitive strategies and memory
processes. Case’s theory is just one of many that attempt to integrate Piagetian and infor-
mation processing theories (see also Fisher, 1980).

Concerns about the Universality of Piaget’s Stages An additional issue of concern for
contemporary theorists is the universality of Piaget’s stages. As stated earlier, it is estimated
that only a small minority of adolescents reach Piaget’s formal operational stage. The
 Focus on Research
Learning Arithmetic in Context

A group of British and Brazilian researchers studied the computational skills of

9- to 15-year-old street vendors in Brazil. In many Brazilian towns, it is common
for younger sons and daughters of street vendors to help their parents at the
market. Adolescents may develop their own businesses to sell roasted peanuts,
popcorn, coconut milk, or corn on the cob. These researchers found that children
and adolescents develop sophisticated arithmetic skills in the context of buying
and selling, but they are unable to perform the same mathematical operations
when they were presented out of context. For example, a typical interview with a
12-year-old street vendor in the market might go like this (Carraher, Carraher, &
Schlieman, 1985):

Customer: How much is one coconut?

Child: 35 cruzerios.
Customer: I would like ten. How much is that?
Child: (pause) Three will be 105, with three more, that will be 210. (pause) I
need four more. That is…(pause) 315. I think it is 350.

After the interviewers posed a number of such questions, the children were given
a paper and pencil and asked to solve identical problems. For example, they were
asked: 35  10  ? The math operation that was performed on the street
was also represented in a word problem: Each banana costs 12 cruzerios. Mary
bought 10 bananas. How much did she pay altogether?
The results of this interesting study showed that when mathematical problems
were embedded in real life contexts (e.g., buying and selling), they were solved at
a much higher rate than the same problem presented out of context. Children cor-
rectly answered the context-specific question 98 percent of the time. When the
same operation was embedded in a word problem, children correctly solved the
problem 73 percent of the time. In contrast, children correctly solved the mathe-
matical operation with no context 37 percent of the time.
The results of this study show that context can have an important influence
on whether or not children are able to use their existing mathematical knowl-
edge. The children in this study were unable to use the computational strategies
they used while selling on the streets for solving problems in school-type
situations. This study raises questions about teaching mathematics as a set
of conventions and routines that are divorced from children’s daily problem-
solving activities.

development of formal operations seems to be influenced by cultural expectations and

experiences. Some theorists claim that Piaget’s research did not adequately consider the
role of culture in the development of thinking skills. Compare Capon and Kuhn’s super-
market study with the study described in the Focus on Research box. In this study, 10- to

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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

12-year-old vendors in Brazil had very little difficulty making large number computations
when selling on the street but were unable to perform similar operations when asked to read
multidigit numerals in written form. The results of cross-cultural studies underscore the im-
portance of considering the cultural context in which thinking skills develop (Rogoff, 1990).

Conclusions about Piaget’s Theory Despite the criticisms discussed here, most theorists
believe that Piaget captured many of the major trends in children’s thinking (Flavell, 1985).
Most preschool children are unable to consider more than one dimension of a stimulus ob- Piaget taught us
ject, to think about relations, or to take the perspective of another person. Older elementary that children do
school children can think logically about relations, perform mental operations, and reflect not see and think
on their own thinking processes, but they are unable to solve hypothetical problems in their about the world
heads or to approach problems in a systematic way, especially when multiple steps are in- as adults do.
volved. Adolescents are better able to use complex symbol systems, to analyze the inher-
ent logic of an argument, and to draw inferences from multiple pieces of evidence, even
when there is some conflicting information. Simply put, Piaget taught us that children do
not see and think about the world as adults do.

Educational Implications of Piaget’s Theory

Much of Piaget’s research focused on children’s development of logical, scientific, and Piaget believed
mathematical concepts. Although Piaget reflected on the general educational implications “learning how to
of his research, he refrained from making specific educational recommendations. Never- learn” should be
theless, Piaget’s research on children’s intellectual development inspired major curriculum the major focus
reforms during the 1960s and 1970s. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development had a major of education and
impact on preschool education (DeVries, 1990). The National Association of Young Chil- also that children
dren (NAEYC) developed and published teaching guidelines that incorporated Piaget’s must construct
ideas about children’s development (Bredekamp & Copple, 1997). Piaget’s theory also their own
serves as the theoretical rationale for constructivist, discovery, inquiry, and problem-ori- knowledge from
ented teaching approaches in today’s classrooms. The Focus on Research box describes a interactions
constructivist approach to teaching and learning mathematics that incorporates learning with their
principles from Piaget’s theory. In this section, we discuss the implications of this theory environment.
for teaching.

Focus on Cognitive Processes

One of the most important contributions of Piaget’s work concerns the purposes and goals
of education. Piaget was critical of educational approaches that emphasized the trans-
mission and memorization of ready-made information. Such approaches, he argued,
discourage children from learning to think for themselves and from developing confidence
in their own thinking processes. In Piaget’s view, “learning how to learn” should serve as
the major focus of education, so that children can become creative, inventive, and inde-
pendent thinkers. Education should “form not furnish” children’s minds (Piaget, 1969,
pp. 69–70).

Focus on Exploration
The second most important contribution of Piaget’s research is the idea that knowledge is
constructed from the child’s own physical and mental activities. Piaget (1964) taught us
that knowledge is not something that can simply be given to children.
 Focus on Research
Box Learning and Teaching Mathematics:
A Constructivist Approach
Piaget was very critical of the teaching of mathematics. In his view, mathematics
was being taught as a set of ready-made rules and formulas. When math is taught
this way, children acquire very little understanding of mathematical concepts and
rules. As a result, they are unable to explain problem solutions. When asked, for
example, to explain why they do the steps of a long-division problem, most
fourth-graders reply, “I don’t know, my teacher told me to do it this way.”
Terry Wood, Paul Cobb, and Erna Yackel (1992) developed a set of mathemati-
cal activities for second-grade children that were based on constructivist principles
of teaching and learning. These activities were subsequently used in ten second-
grade classrooms for a full year. The mathematical activities could be solved in a
variety of ways. The children worked on the problem in pairs so that they could
share ideas, justify answers, and resolve conflicting points of view. As children
worked on problems collaboratively, the teacher observed and listened. When ap-
propriate, the teacher intervened to offer suggestions to challenge ideas and to
probe the children’s thinking. Small-group work was then followed by a whole-
class discussion. In this setting, children explained and shared their problem solu-
tions. The goal of this whole-class discussion was to construct some shared
meaning of the mathematical problem and its solution. The following excerpt illus-
trates how the class developed a “shared” understanding of commutativity:

Teacher: Okay. Can we stop a minute boys? I think we have all agreed on
something that I want to get clear. We all agree that 3 times 6 is 18?
Children: Yes.
Teacher: And we agree 6 times 3 is 18?
Children: No. No. Yes. (Children begin to talk.)

Knowledge is not a copy of reality. To know an object, to know an event, is not simply to
look at it and make a mental copy or image of it. To know an object is to act on it. To know
is to modify, to transform the object, and to understand the process of this transformation,
and as a consequence to understand the way the object is constructed. (p. 8)

Piaget’s theory of intellectual development has also greatly influenced mathematics and
science education. Current reform efforts in these areas are guided by constructivist views
of teaching and learning that are based in part on Piaget’s theory. Consistent with Piaget’s
views, the new curriculum standards in mathematics and science education emphasize
that knowledge is not simply transmitted. Students must have opportunities to experiment,
to question, and to create their own meaning through their own physical and mental activ-
ities. The curriculum standards also emphasize the important role of peer interactions
in children’s cognitive development. Students need opportunities to share, discuss, and ar-
gue different points of view. Moreover, reform efforts in mathematics and science empha-
size the role of teachers in choosing appropriate learning activities, guiding learning, and

150
 Matt: But I will count on my fingers. (He goes to front.) Watch. 6 plus 6 is 12.
Teacher: Let’s listen.
Matt: So that’s two (holds up two fingers for the two 6s) and then adds 6
more on. Six (putting his thumb up then pausing to think) 12–13, 14,
15, 16, 17, 18 (counts on, using his other hand).
Teacher: Okay we have agreed on that, haven’t we?
Children: Yeah.
Teacher: We’ve agreed that 3 times 6 is 18 and that 6 times 3 is 18, so is it pos-
sible to switch them around and still come up with the same answer?
Children: Yes.
Teacher: I think we have pretty much agreed on that, haven’t we?
Children: Yes.

At the end of the school year, researchers assessed how well children in the
problem-oriented mathematics curriculum performed on a standardized achieve-
ment test (Wood, Cobb, & Yackel, 1992). When compared with children who had
traditional textbook instruction in mathematics, children in the problem-oriented
classes did just as well on computational tests, but they scored higher on tests
that measured mathematical concepts and applications. In addition, children in
the problem-oriented classes were more likely to report that understanding and
collaboration leads to success in mathematics, whereas children in the tradition-
ally taught mathematics classes reported that success depended on conforming
to the ideas of others, being neat, and working quietly.

stimulating children’s reasoning processes. The Focus on Teaching box presents a high
school biology lesson that incorporates Piaget’s principles of learning.

Focus on Social Interactions

Another important contribution of Piaget’s research to education concerns the role of social
interactions in children’s cognitive development. Piaget (1976) emphasized, “No real in-
tellectual activity can be carried out in the form of experimental actions and spontaneous
investigations without free collaboration among individuals, that is to say, among students”
(pp. 107–108). For younger children, social interactions play an important role in the re-
duction of egocentrism. For older children, especially adolescents, interactions with peers
and adults are a natural source of cognitive conflict. Through interacting with others, chil-
dren clarify their views, obtain conflicting opinions, and reconcile their ideas with those of
others. The equilibration processes described previously are often set into motion when
children do not agree with one another.

151
 Focus on Teaching
Learning Genetics Through Inquiry

Mrs. Johnson is planning a semester unit on how traits are inherited from one
generation to the next. She believes that many important learning goals of her
school’s science program can be met in this unit. Mrs. Johnson wants to provide
student with opportunities to understand basic principles of transmission genet-
ics. She also wants them to appreciate how using a mental model is useful for un-
derstanding. She wants her students to engage in and learn the processes of
inquiry as they develop their mental models, and she also wants them to under-
stand the effect of transmission genetics on their lives and on society.
Selecting an appropriate computer program to simulate genetic events is im-
portant, because simulation will be key. In reviewing several programs, she noted
several common features. Each simulation allows students to select parental
phenotypes and make crosses. Offspring are produced quickly by all programs.
The student will be able to simulate many generations of crosses in a single
class period.
All the programs are open-ended—no answer books are provided to check an-
swers. All the programs allow students to begin with data and to construct a
model of elements and processes of an inheritance program. Students will work
in teams to develop their inheritance models. Mrs. Johnson also plans to obtain
reprints of Mendel’s original article for students to read early in the unit. In addi-
tion to using the simulations and reading, Mrs. Johnson wants her students to be
working with living organisms. She has ordered yeast strains, fruit flies, and Fast
Plants. She has prepared units in genetics using each of these organisms and has
adapted the units to meet the needs of the students. As the unit progresses, a ge-
netics counselor from a local hospital will talk to the class about common genetic
disorders and how such disorders are diagnosed and treated.
For the final project, each student will become an “expert” in one inherited dis-
order and prepare a report that discusses its inheritance pattern, symptoms, fre-
quency, and effects. Students will present their findings as a poster, presentation,
or report to be shared with their classmates and parents. Mrs. Johnson has also
actively gathered information from organizations, such as March of Dimes, so stu-
dents, if they choose, can become involved in service organizations focused on a
particular genetic disorder.

SOURCE: National Research Council (1996).

Social interactions can also help children develop an awareness and understanding of
others. Teachers and parents can facilitate perspective-taking skills by asking children to
explain how they feel when they are hurt or injured by another child. When negotiating
conflict, adults can help children generate and evaluate different solutions to problems.
Role taking and simulation activities are also helpful for helping children understand the
perspective of others. Children’s literature may be helpful as well. Adults can ask children
how different characters feel about different events or to act out how a character may be
feeling. Discussion and reading groups for adolescents can help them to understand that
others may have feelings like them.
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Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development

The Importance of Play

Piaget’s theory also emphasizes the important role of play in children’s development. Play
is a natural way for children to learn. It is through play that children learn about the world
and how to master the environment. Play is also an important window into children’s cog-
nitive and social development. Researchers indicate that forms of children’s play follow Pi-
aget’s stages of cognitive development. Infants play by exploring and manipulating objects,
such as shaking a rattle or kicking a mobile in their crib. Preschoolers engage in pretend,
sociodramatic or fantasy play, such a pretending to be a firefighter or going on a trip. Chil-
dren in the primary grades engage in a good deal of fantasy play, but as they cognitively
mature they begin to prefer organized games with rules. By late childhood, children have
moved away from dramatic play to games that are group oriented. Play may involve orga-
nized sports, board games, or simply hanging out with friends and listening to music.
Although children’s play is often not taken seriously by adults, it has many important
benefits. In infancy, play can stimulate brain development and provide the foundation for
understanding causality. Through symbolic play, children express and represent their ideas,
thoughts, and feelings. Play also helps to develop abstract thinking, problem solving, per-
spective taking, and persistence. In addition to supporting cognitive development, play has
many important benefits for children’s language, social, emotional, and physical develop-
ment. As Maria Montessori so wisely observed, “Play is the child’s work.”

The Role of Learning

Although Piaget’s ideas about development have influenced educational theory, there is
one dimension of his theory that remains controversial. Piaget (1964) argued that “learning
is subordinated to development and not vice-versa” (p. 17). Piaget’s theory represents a Unlike most of his
fundamental departure from the view that learning can stimulate development. Behavior- contemporaries,
ists such as Edward Thorndike and B. F. Skinner, for example, assert that learning new in- Piaget believed
formation or skills can result in higher levels of cognitive functioning. As will be discussed that development
presently, Vygotsky (1978) also proposed that “properly organized learning results in controls learning
mental development and sets in motion a variety of developmental processes that would be more than
impossible apart from learning” (p. 90). For Piaget, the stage of development limits what learning controls
children can learn and how they learn. It is not possible to accelerate development development.
through learning experiences. The following statement (Duckworth, 1964) makes this point
very clear.

The goal in education is not to increase the amount of knowledge, but to create the possi-
bilities for the child to invent and to discover. When we teach too fast, we keep the child
from inventing and discovering himself.…Teaching means creating the situations where
[mental] structures can be discovered; it does not mean transmitting structures which may
be assimilated at nothing other than the verbal level (p. 3).

Unfortunately, Piaget’s view on the relationship of development to learning is often in-

terpreted to mean that the teaching of certain skills and subjects should be delayed until the
child is “mentally ready.” It is important to keep in mind that Piaget recognized social in-
teractions as a factor that stimulated children’s development. Piaget’s point was that exter-
nal stimulation of thinking can only succeed if it provokes the child to engage in
assimilation and accommodation processes. It is the child’s own efforts to resolve a conflict
that takes him or her to a new level of cognitive functioning. Children can certainly
memorize that 2  18  20, but do they really understand that the 1 in 18 stands for ten?
The Focus on Research box describes how teaching simple algorithms like “carrying” and
 Focus on Research
How Teaching Algorithms “Unteaches” Place Value

For 20 years, Constance Kamii has observed children doing math lessons in the
early primary grades. Her book Young Children Reinvent Arithmetic (Kamii, 2000)
uses Piaget’s theory to explain how children acquire number concepts. Consis-
tent with a constructivist approach, Kamii believes that mathematical knowledge
is “constructed (created) by each child from within, in interaction with the envi-
ronment” (Kamii, 2000, p. 3). Kamii’s research has shown that teaching children
algorithms can “unteach” place value. This conclusion is based on interviews with
three classes of second graders. One of the teachers taught algorithms (i.e., car-
rying and borrowing), but two did not. At the end of the school year, children were
asked to solve the following problem without paper or pencil: 7  52  186 
_____. Children in the no-algorithm classes produced the highest number of
correct answers (45 percent), and the algorithm classes produced the lowest
number (12 percent). By analyzing children’s incorrect answers, Kamii began to
see the harmful effects of algorithms. Children in the algorithm classes gave an-
swers that were not reasonable (e.g., 29, 30, 198, 938, 989, etc.) in relation to the
addends given. Kamii explained that answers in the 900s were obtained by
adding 7 to the 1 of 186, and carrying one from another column. Answers smaller
than 186 were obtained by adding all the digits as one: 7  5  2  1  8  6. In
contrast, incorrect answers in the no-algorithm classes were reasonable. The chil-
dren in these classes began by adding 50 to 180, then adding the 1s. They ap-
peared to be using good number sense (i.e., the answer could not be smaller than
one of the addends).
Kamii argues that encouraging young children to use algorithms to solve arith-
metic problems can prevent them from developing number sense. It encourages
them to give up their thinking about numbers. Adults understand that the 5 in 52
stands for 50, but children who are still acquiring a sense of place value think that
the 5 means five. In this way, algorithms can “unteach” place value. Kamii has
developed a series of videotapes for teaching numerical concepts using Piaget’s
theory:

Kamii, C. (1989). Double-column addition: A teacher uses Piaget’s theory.

[videotape]. New York: Teachers College Press.
Kamii, C. (1990). Multidigit division. Two teachers using Piaget’s theory.
[videotape]. New York: Teachers College Press.
Kamii, C. & Clark, F. B. (2000). First graders dividing 62 by 5. [videotape].
New York: Teachers College Press.

SOURCE: After Kamii (2000).

“borrowing” while children are acquiring an understanding of place value can undermine
the development of their numerical reasoning.
According to Piaget, a better approach would be to ensure that students have numerous
opportunities to group and count objects before problems are presented in a symbolic or ab-
stract form. The task for teachers is to probe their students’ current level of understanding
154
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Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

and to determine the prerequisite experiences students need to move to a higher level of un-
derstanding. This interpretation implies that teachers should not simply wait until children
are “mentally ready” to learn. They should adjust their instructional tactics to meet the lev-
els of cognitive development they encounter.

Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Lev Vygotsky (1896–1934) was a major figure in Russian psychology. Vygotsky provided
a theory of children’s development that was greatly influenced by the historical events of
his time. Following the Russian Revolution in 1917, leaders of the new Soviet society em-
phasized the role of each person in transforming society through labor and education. Vy-
gotsky constructed a psychological theory of development that fit the view of this new
Soviet state.
Vygotsky’s theory stresses relations between the individual and society. He asserted that
it is not possible to understand a child’s development without some understanding of the
culture in which the child is raised. Vygotsky believed that an individual’s thinking patterns
are not due to innate factors but are products of cultural institutions and social activities.
Adult society has a responsibility to share its collective knowledge with younger and less
advanced members in order to promote intellectual development. Through social activities,
children learn to incorporate cultural tools such as language, counting systems, writing, art,
and other social inventions into their thinking. Cognitive development occurs as children
internalize the products of their social interactions. According to Vygotsky’s theory, both
the history of the child’s culture and the history of the child’s own experiences are impor-
tant for understanding cognitive development. This tenet in Vygotsky’s theory represents a
cultural-historical view of children’s development.
Vygotsky’s career as a psychologist was brief, due to his premature death at age 38 from
tuberculosis. During his 10-year career, however, Vygotsky wrote more than 100 books
and articles. His most influential book, Thought and Language, was not published until the
year of his death. From 1936 to 1956, Vygotsky’s work was banned in the Soviet Union,
because it contained references to Western psychologists. Consequently, Vygotsky’s work
did not become widely available to researchers until the 1960s, almost 30 years after
his death.
In the last two decades, Vygotsky’s influence on developmental psychology has steadily
grown. His views regarding the social context of learning also have a major impact on ed-
ucational practices today. In the next sections, we consider the major contributions of Vy-
gotsky’s theory for understanding children’s cognitive development and learning in the
classroom.
Vygotsky did not
believe that
Key Concepts in Vygotsky’s Theory knowledge is
individually
Social Origins of Thought constructed, as
Vygotsky is considered one of the earliest critics of Piaget’s theory of cognitive develop- Piaget proposed,
ment. In Vygotsky’s view, knowledge is not individually constructed, as Piaget proposed, but that it is
but socially co-constructed between people as they interact. Social interactions with more coconstructed
knowledgeable peers and adults provide the main vehicles for intellectual development. between people
For Vygotsky, knowledge is not located in the environment nor in the child. Rather, it is as they interact.
situated in a particular social or cultural context. In other words, Vygotsky believed that
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

individual mental processes, such as remembering, problem solving, or planning, have a

social origin (Wertsch & Tulviste, 1992).
According to Vygotsky, children are born with elementary mental abilities such as per-
ception, attention, and memory. By interacting with more knowledgeable peers and adults,
these “innate” abilities are transformed into higher mental functions. More specifically,
Vygotsky believed that cognitive development involves the internalization of functions
Internalization that first occur on what he called a social plane. Internalization refers to the process of
refers to the constructing an internal representation of external physical actions or mental operations.
process of James Wertsch (1985) described Vygotsky’s ideas about the social origins of cognition in
forming a mental this way:
representation of
external physical An important point to note about Vygotsky’s ideas on the social origins of cognition is that
actions or mental it is at this point that he uses the notion of internalization. He is not simply claiming that
operations. social interaction leads to the development of the child’s abilities in problem solving, mem-
ory, etc.; rather, he is saying that the very means (especially speech) used in social interac-
tions are taken over by the individual child and internalized. Thus, Vygotsky is making a
very strong statement here about internalization and the social foundations of cognition. (p.
146; italics added)

A good example of this internalization process may be observed when an adult reads to
a young child. For instance, a parent may point to objects on a page and count off “one,”
“two,” “three,” and so forth. The next time this parent and child read the book together, the
child may point to the pictures and try to count the objects on his or her own. A very young
child will have difficulty remembering the order of number tags, so the parent is likely to
say the number words too. In the Vygotskian sense, the child is internalizing a way of us-
ing numbers to give meaning to a set of objects. When children begin to count off objects
in the absence of a parent’s prompts or assistance, then they have truly made this external
operation their own. The counting operation has become a part of the children’s own inter-
nal organization, and it is carried out without the support of others.

Tools for Thought

Technical tools Similar to Piaget’s way of thinking, Vygotsky defined cognitive development in terms of
are used to qualitative changes in children’s thinking processes. However, he described these develop-
change objects or mental changes in terms of the technical and psychological tools children use to make
to gain mastery sense of their world. Technical tools are generally used to change objects or to gain mas-
over the tery over the environment, whereas psychological tools are used to organize or control
environment; thought and behavior.
psychological In the example described previously, the child is learning to use a counting system as a
tools are used to way of ordering objects. Numbers, words, and other symbol systems are different examples
organize or to of psychological tools. Other examples include systems of logic, social norms and con-
control thought ventions, theoretical concepts, maps, literary forms, or drawings. Some examples of tech-
and behavior. nical tools include pencil and paper, protractors, machines, scales, hammers, and so on.
According to Vygotsky, every culture has its own set of technical and psychological tools
that are passed on to children through social interactions. These cultural tools in turn shape
the mind.
What are some ways children’s thinking is molded by society? In the early 1900s, for in-
stance, mothers taught their daughters to churn butter and to weave cloth by the time they
reached puberty. Few young women today learn these skills. Before the availability of in-
expensive calculators, students of all ages were required to memorize arithmetic facts, in-
cluding square roots of numbers. Most schools today allow students to use calculators in
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Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

mathematics and science classes. Currently, another technological tool, the computer, is be-
coming more and more common in classroom and home environments. It is interesting to
consider how computers are influencing the way children and adolescents think.

Language and Development

For Vygotsky, language is the most important psychological tool influencing children’s cog-
nitive development. In Vygotsky’s (1962) words, “The child’s intellectual development is
contingent on mastering the social means of thought, that is, language” (p. 24). He identified
three different stages in children’s use of language: social, egocentric, and inner speech.
In the first stage, social speech, language is used primarily for communicative func- Vygotsky
tions. Thought and language have separate functions. Children enter the next stage of de- identified three
velopment, egocentric speech, when they begin to use speech to regulate their behavior stages—social,
and thinking. For example, many 5- and 6-year-old children talk aloud to themselves as egocentric, and
they work on various tasks. Because children are not trying to communicate with others, inner speech—in
these self-verbalizations are viewed as private rather than social speech. At this point in de- a child’s use of
velopment, speech begins to serve an intellectual as well as communicative function. Berk language.
and Garvin (1984) observed the following examples of private speech in an Appalachian
mission school for low-income children aged 5 to 10 years old.

[Student] O. Sits down at the art table and says to himself, “I want to draw something. Let’s
see. I need a big piece of paper. I want to draw my cat.”

[Student] C., working in her arithmetic workbook says out loud to no one in particular,
“Six.” Then counting on her fingers she continues, “Seven, eight, nine, ten. It’s ten, it’s ten.
The answer’s ten.” (p. 277)

In Vygotsky’s last stage of speech development, inner speech, children internalize ego-
centric speech. They use language internally to guide their thinking and behavior. At this
stage, children can think about problem solutions and action sequences by manipulating
language “in their heads.”

Zone of Proximal Development

One of the most important contributions of Vygotsky’s theory to psychology and educa-
tion is the zone of proximal development. Vygotsky (1978) was interested in children’s po-
tential for intellectual growth rather than their actual level of development. The zone of Vygotsky’s zone
proximal development includes those functions that are in the process of developing but of proximal
not yet fully developed. development is
the gap between
The zone of proximal development defines those functions that have not yet matured but cognitive
are in the process of maturation, functions that will mature tomorrow but are currently in activities children
an embryonic state. These functions could be termed the “buds” or “flowers” of develop- can do on their
ment rather than the “fruits” of development. The actual development level characterizes own and what
mental development retrospectively, while the zone of proximal development characterizes they can do with
mental development prospectively. (pp. 86–87)
the assistance of
others.
In practice, the zone of proximal development represents the gap between what children
can do on their own and what they can do with the assistance of others, as illustrated in
Figure 3.10. For example, a 6-year-old might have difficulty assembling a model airplane
alone, but with the assistance and guidance of an older, more experienced sibling, the child
can successfully complete the task.
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

Level of Potential Development

Determined by problem solving
in collaboration
with more capable partner
ZPD

FIGURE 3.10
Zone of Proximal Level of Actual Development
Development Determined by independent
SOURCE: After problem solving
Hamilton & Ghatala
(1994).

In the example presented at the beginning of the chapter about boiling tap water, the stu-
dents are acquiring a more sophisticated understanding of their science experiment with the
teacher’s guidance. Note that the teacher is not telling students what they should learn from
the experiment. He is guiding their thinking through the use of questions (What happens
when the water is boiled?) and prompts (Think about density.). At the end of the discussion,
the students can use what they learned from the experiment to make hypotheses about other
liquids. As a result, the students are thinking about the experiment at a level that was not
evident when they were carrying out the experiment on their own.
Vygotsky assumed that interactions with adults and peers in the zone of proximal de-
velopment helps children to move to a higher level of functioning. We will examine how
adults can help “build scaffolds” for children when we consider the educational implica-
tions of Vygotsky’s theory.

Contrasts Between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

There are several important differences in the basic assumptions of Vygotsky’s and Piaget’s
theories. Both theorists agree that knowledge must be mentally constructed by the child,
but Vygotsky placed a much stronger emphasis on the role of social interactions in this con-
struction process. To Vygotsky, the construction of knowledge is not an individual process.
Rather, it is primarily a social process in which higher mental functions are products of so-
cially mediated activity. Collaborative learning and problem solving are the main vehicles
of cognitive change.
Compared with Piaget, Vygotsky also placed a stronger emphasis on culture in shaping
children’s cognitive development. As children develop, they learn to use tools for thought
that are valued by their culture. There are no universal patterns of development because
cultures emphasize different kind of tools, intellectual skills, and social conventions. The
intellectual skills needed for survival in a highly technical society differ from those needed
for survival in a largely agrarian society.
Another important difference between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s views concerns the im-
portance placed on learning. As we know, Piaget believed that cognitive development lim-
its what children are capable of learning from social experiences. It is not possible to
accelerate development through learning experiences. Although Vygotsky (1978) agreed
that learning is not the same as development, he argued that “learning is a necessary and
universal aspect of the process of developing culturally organized, specifically human, psy-
chological functions” (p. 90). Vygotsky believed instruction (both formal and informal) by
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Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

more knowledgeable peers or adults is at the heart of cognitive development. Vygotsky be-
lieved that learning precedes development.
In addition, Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development offers a very different view of Vygotsky believed
readiness than the one provided by Piaget’s theory. According to Piaget, children’s readi- that learning
ness for learning is defined by their existing level of competence and knowledge. If a precedes
teacher attempts to teach a concept or operation before a child is mentally ready, it can re- development and
sult in what Piaget called “empty learning.” In contrast, Vygotsky (1978) argued that in- is the product
struction should be directed toward children’s potential level of development, the level of of social
competence they can demonstrate with the assistance and guidance of others. In his words, interactions
“The only ‘good learning’ is that which is in advance of the child’s development” (p. 89). shaped by one’s
Finally, Vygotsky and Piaget had very different opinions about the role of language in cultural tools.
development. In Piaget’s view, the egocentric speech of young children reflects the child’s
inability to take the perspective of others. It plays no useful role in their development.
Thinking processes develop from children’s actions on objects, not from talking. Vygotsky,
on the other hand, thought that egocentric speech is an extremely important developmental
phenomenon. He believed that egocentric speech helps children organize and regulate their
thinking. When children talk to themselves, they are trying to solve problems and think on
their own. According to Vygotsky, egocentric speech, or private speech, is the means by
which children move from being regulated by others (other-regulated) to being regulated
by their own thinking processes (self-regulated). Egocentric speech has both an intellectual
and self-regulatory function for young children.

Limitations of Vygotsky’s Theory

Vygotsky’s theory helps to understand the how cognition and learning is a social collabo-
rative process with others (Rogoff, 1998). This theory represents a radical departure from
Piaget’s view that cognition is an individual activity, and, as described below, it has impor-
tant implications for education. Nevertheless, Vygotsky’s theory has some important limi-
tations that need to be considered. First, Vygotsky’s theory places much less emphasis on
physical maturation or innate biological processes than most other developmental theories.
We have learned that development involves a complex interaction of genetic and environ-
ment influences. Additionally, little attention was given to what is meant by learning and
development in this perspective. In Vvgotsky’s view, development involves changes in the
child’s participation in social activities; however, the cognitive processes that enable this
transformation to occur have not been clearly specified. For example, what cognitive
changes enable the child to move from an assisted reader to an independent reader? As dis-
cussed in Chapter 5, this transformation involves attention and memory processes, as well
as social interactions that support reading efforts. For this reason, some theorists regard Vy-
gotsky more as educational than developmental theorist (Flavell, 1994).

Educational Contributions of Vygotsky’s Theory

Vygotsky regarded education as central to the development of children (Moll, 1990). In the
introduction to Vygotsky’s Thought and Language (1962), Jerome Bruner wrote, “Vygotsky’s
conception of development is at the same time a theory of education” (p. v). Although seven
of Vygotsky’s first eight writings in psychology (written between 1922 and 1926) addressed
educational issues, his work is only beginning to have a significant impact on education in the
United States (Moll, 1990; Newman, Griffin, & Cole, 1989; Tharp & Gallimore, 1989). This
section examines the educational implications and applications of Vygotsky’s theory.
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

The Role of Private Speech

In Vygotsky’s theory, private speech serves an important self-regulatory function. It is the
means by which children guide their own thinking and behavior. Children engage in overt
self-regulatory speech before they use covert, inner speech. As children make this transi-
tion in the early grades, they need learning activities that permit them to talk aloud as they
are solving problems and completing tasks.
In Vygotsky’s Observations of children in classroom settings provide clear support for Vygotsky’s
theory, claim that private speech plays an important role in learning. For example, Berk and Garvin
egocentric speech (1984) observed the frequency and variety of private speech among 5- to 10-year-olds in a
is the means by school setting. They observed an average of 30 private utterances per hour. Interestingly,
which children there were no age differences in the quantity of private speech observed, and, for all age
move from being groups, private speech increased when students completed cognitively demanding tasks
regulated by without an adult present. In another study, Berk (1986) observed the frequency of private
others to being speech in first- and third-grade mathematics classes. She reported that nearly 98 percent of
self-regulated by the children talked aloud to themselves as they worked on math problems. Furthermore,
their own this task-related private speech was positively related to mathematics achievement in the
thinking. early grades.
As children mature, task-related vocalizations are gradually transformed into quiet
whispers until they are internalized as inner speech. Private speech in the form of self-guid-
ing statements or reading aloud declines by the age of 10. However, some studies suggest
that older students can continue to benefit from the use of self-instructional strategies, es-
pecially if they lack an ability to regulate their behavior or thinking.
Donald Meichenbaum’s (1977) program of cognitive behavior modification uses self-
regulatory speech to help children control and regulate their behavior. Children are taught
self-regulatory strategies that can be used as a verbal tool to inhibit impulses, control frus-
tration, and promote reflection. The training program generally begins with an adult per-
forming a task while talking aloud (cognitive modeling). Next, a child performs the same
task under the guidance of an adult who encourages the child to talk aloud as he or she
works on the task (overt guidance) and reinforces the child for using the modeled strate-
gies. When children in this program become proficient in the use of cognitive strategies and
overt self-instructions, they are encouraged to perform the task while guiding their behav-
ior by way of whispering the instructions to themselves (faded self-guidance) or by inter-
nal speech (covert self-instruction). Following is an example of a training protocol for a
line drawing task that was first modeled by an adult and eventually used by a child (Me-
ichenbaum & Goodman, 1971):

Okay, what is it that I have to do? You want me to copy the picture with the different lines.
I have to go carefully and slowly. Okay, draw the line down, down, good; then to the right,
that’s it; now down some more and to the left. Good. I’m doing fine so far. Remember, go
slowly. Now back up again. No, I was supposed to go down. That’s okay. Just erase the line
carefully. . . . Good. Even if I make an error I can go on slowly and carefully. I have to go
down now. Finished. I did it! (p. 117)

Self-instructional training has been used successfully to improve self-management skills

and self-control in impulsive and aggressive children (Manning, 1988; Camp, Blom,
Hebert, & van Doornick, 1977; Neilens & Israel, 1981). These techniques also show
promise for improving children’s writing skills, reading comprehension, and mathematics
achievement (Harris & Graham, 1985; Meichenbaum & Asarno, 1978; Schunk & Cox,
1986). In sum, considerable research suggests that private speech is a valuable tool for
learning. Because private speech is important for the development of self-regulatory
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Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

processes, teachers need to model self-instructional strategies and to encourage students’

use of task-related verbalizations when they are having difficulty in the classroom.

The Importance of Adult Guidance and Scaffolding

Vygotsky’s theory emphasized the critical role of adults in guiding and supporting chil-
dren’s intellectual development. Through the social guidance provided by others, children
can function at a higher level of development, their zone of proximal development. Several
researchers have studied the processes by which adults guide children’s participation in the
zone of proximal development. We will examine two different but closely related concep-
tions of this social process—guided participation and scaffolding.
Barbara Rogoff (1990) used the term guided participation to describe the mutual in-
volvement between children and their social partners in collective activities. Guided par-
ticipation has three phases: choosing and structuring activities to fit the skills and interests
of children; supporting and monitoring children’s participation in activities; and adjusting
the level of support provided as children begin to perform the activity independently. The
goal of guided participation is to transfer responsibility for the task from the skilled partner
to the child.
Rogoff and her colleagues (1984) observed many examples of guided participation in a
study of mothers assisting 6- and 9-year-old children to perform two different classification Guided
tasks in the laboratory. The tasks resembled either a home activity (i.e., sorting food items participation and
onto shelves) or a school activity (i.e., sorting photographs of objects into abstract cate- scaffolding both
gories). The mothers used a variety of techniques to guide their child’s participation in involve adults’
these activities. For example, some mothers connected the food sorting task to putting gro- helping children
ceries away at home. Other mothers used subtle gestures (pointing, looking, etc.) and ver- perform some
bal cues to guide their child’s participation. task they could
Most significantly, Rogoff and her colleagues found that mothers adjusted their level of not perform
support according to their perceptions of the child’s ability to handle the task. For example, without help and
mothers of 6-year-olds provided more formal instruction in the school task than mothers of then gradually
8-year-olds. Age differences in the level of support provided by mothers were less evident withdrawing help
in the more familiar home task. In addition, as the children showed they could handle more as the children
of the task on their own, the mothers provided less instruction, but when the children be- become more
gan to make errors, this instructional support reappeared. This sensitive adjustment of sup- proficient.
port is perhaps the most significant aspect of guided participation, because it enables the
child to gradually assume more responsibility for managing the activity.
Rogoff’s notion of guided participation is closely related to the concept of scaffolding.
Jerome Bruner and his associates (Wood, Bruner, & Ross, 1976) introduced this term be-
fore Vygotsky’s work was widely known in the United States. Similar to guided participa-
tion, scaffolding refers to the process by which adults provide support to a child who is
learning to master a task or problem. When adults scaffold a task or problem, they perform
or direct those elements of the task that are beyond the child’s ability.
Scaffolding can take the form of verbal or physical assistance. For example, a father
who is building a birdhouse with his 7-year-old daughter might help guide her hands while
she saws and nails the pieces of wood. The daughter is not yet able to perform these activ-
ities on her own, but with her father’s assistance, she can participate meaningfully in the
activity. At a later point, the father may assist his daughter in another woodworking task by
providing verbal reminders (“Remember how I taught you to hold the hammer.”) or by
providing feedback (“This piece of wood needs to be sanded some more before you paint
it.”). With practice and time, the daughter will learn to perform woodworking activities
more and more independently.
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

XXX
XXX
SOURCE: David Young-
Wolff/Photo Edit.

XXX

In a classic study, Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) studied an adult’s role in helping a
child move from joint to independent problem solving. Female tutors, who were given no
special training, were asked to build a pyramid from interlocking wooden blocks with 3-, 4-,
and 5-year-old children. By observing this joint problem-solving activity, the researchers
identified six important elements of the scaffolding process. These are shown in Figure 3.11.
In summary, the concepts of guided participation and scaffolding were both inspired by
Vygotsky’s theory of development. Both processes are powerful teaching tools at home and
school. In the classroom, these processes can take the form of demonstrating skills; leading
students through the steps of a complicated problem; breaking a complex task into sub-
tasks; doing part of the problem as a group; asking questions to help students diagnose er-
rors; and providing detailed feedback (Rosenshine & Meister, 1992). Keep in mind,
however, that teachers need to gradually pass more and more control of the activity to the
child. By relinquishing control, the teacher enables the child to engage in independent and
self-regulated learning.

Reciprocal Teaching
One of the best applications of Vygotsky’s theory is the reciprocal teaching model devel-
oped by Annemarie Palincsar and Ann Brown (1984). The model was originally designed
to help poor readers acquire comprehension skills. In this program, teachers and students
take turns being the discussion leader. Through collaborative learning dialogues, children
learn how to regulate their own reading comprehension. The reciprocal teaching procedure
has been used successfully with both elementary and secondary school students.
The program starts out with adults or teachers serving as the leaders and modeling how
to lead the discussion. The leader is responsible for asking questions that require students
to summarize material, detect inconsistencies, and make predictions about what will
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Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

1. Recruitment. The adult elicits the child’s interest in accomplishing the intended goal
of the activity. This function is particularly important for learners who are not able to
keep the goal in mind.
2. Demonstrating solutions. The adult demonstrates or models a more appropriate form
of a solution than was originally performed by the child. Children are much more likely
to perform those acts they can already do.
3. Simplifying the task. The adult breaks the task into a set of subroutines that the child
can successfully complete on his or her own.
4. Maintaining participation. The adult provides encouragement and keeps the student
oriented toward the goal of the activity.
5. Providing feedback. The adult provides feedback that identifies discrepancies between
what the student is doing and what is required to successfully complete the task. FIGURE 3.11
6. Controlling frustration. The adult helps control frustration and risk in finding Elements of the
problem solutions. Scaffolding Process

happen next. Students carry out simpler aspects of the task while observing and learning
from the adult. As the students develop their comprehension skills, the teacher increases his
or her demands, requiring students to participate at slightly more challenging levels. Even-
tually, students assume the leader’s position, and the teacher acts more as a coach than as a
model. During the course of training, student questions become more and more sophisti-
cated. The Focus on Research box compares the quality of reciprocal teaching dialogue on
day 3 and day 13 of the program.
Palincsar and Brown’s instructional program incorporates several features of Vygotsky’s
theory. First, group discussions allow less competent students to perform at levels slightly
above their current level of competence or at their zone of proximal development. Second,
the learning situation is carefully scaffolded by the adult. The teacher continues to push for
deeper understanding and to provide instructional support for less able students but then
“fades into the background when students demonstrate they can take over” (Brown & Cam-
pione, 1990, p. 119). Finally, the meaning of the text is socially negotiated and constructed
in the context of group discussions.
Studies reported by Palincsar and Brown (1984) indicate that the reciprocal teaching
procedure leads to substantial improvements in seventh-grade students’ comprehension
skills. Additionally, the students maintained the effects of the program for at least 8 weeks.
Even more important, the training generalized to other subject areas. The students who par-
ticipated in the program showed a better understanding of science and social studies mate-
rials they read in their classroom. Thus, the internalization of strategies learned in the
reciprocal teaching program allowed students to better monitor and regulate their compre-
hension in other learning situations as well.

The Role of Peer Interactions

Both Piaget and Vygotsky emphasized the importance of peers in children’s cognitive de-
velopment. Following Piaget’s theory, children can influence each other’s cognitive devel-
opment when they say or do something that is in conflict with the other child’s thinking.
Cognitive conflict leads children to restructure their thinking (accommodate) in order to re-
store a balance (equilibration). By comparison, researchers examining peer interactions
from a Vygotskian perspective have argued that children influence each other’s development
 Focus on Research
Examples of Reciprocal Teaching Dialogue:
Day 3 and Day 13 of Training

Day 3
TEXT (read silently):
Can Snakes Sting with their Tongues? No—snakes’ tongues are completely
harmless. They’re used for feeling things and for sharpening the snakes’ sense of
smell. Although snakes can smell in the usual way, the tongue flickering in the air
picks up tiny particles of matter. These particles are deposited in two tiny cavities
at the base of the nostrils to increase the snake’s ability to smell.

1. A: Do snakes’ tongues sting?

2. K: Sometimes.

3. A: Correct. This paragraph is about do snakes sting with their

tongue, and different ways that the tongue is used for and the
senses of smell.

4. T: Are there any questions?

5. C: Snakes’ tongues don’t sting.

6. T: Beautiful! I thought, boy, I must have been doing some fast read-
ing there because I missed that point. A, could you ask your
question again?

7. A: Do snakes’ tongues really sting?

8. T: Now, A, since you have asked the question, can you find in that
paragraph where the question is answered?

9. A: No, snakes’ tongues are completely harmless.

10. T: So we’ll try again. Can you generate another question that you
think a teacher might ask?

11. A: What are the tongues used for?

12. T: Good!

through the process of collaboration (Tudge & Rogoff, 1989). The following example il-
lustrates how one student can help guide the thinking of another student while working on
a lever task in fifth-grade science.

Hank: Ready? Do you want to hold the lever?

Lester: Yeah.
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 Day 13
TEXT (read silently):
The second oldest form of salt production is mining. Unlike early methods that
made the work extremely dangerous and difficult, today’s methods use special
machinery, and salt mining is easier and safer. The old expression “back to the
salt mine” no longer applies.

1. L: Name two words that often describe mining salt in the old days.

2. K: Back to the salt mines?

3. L: No. Angela?

4. A: Dangerous and difficult.

5. L: Correct. This paragraph is about comparing the old mining of salt

and today’s mining of salt.

6. T: Beautiful.

7. L: I have a prediction to make.

8. T: Good.

9. L: I think it might tell when salt was first discovered, well, it might tell
what salt is made of and how it’s made.

10. T: O.K. Can we have another leader?

L  Indicates discussion leader

T  Indicates adult teacher
A, B, C, K, and L are seventh-grade students with reading comprehension skills 2 years below grade level.

SOURCE: After Palincsar & Brown (1984).

Hank: Now, let’s wait a sec. Let’s make sure that we’re setting everything up
right. Now, that [spring scale] goes on the 4 and the block goes on 5.
[Lester begins adjusting the scale.]
Hank: I’ll tell you when it’s level. You just have to pull. You have to pull real
hard. OK. A little bit more, pull a little bit more. OK, stop. You got it.
Great. (Jones & Carter, 1994, pp. 613–614)
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

XXX
XXX
SOURCE: Bill Whitman.

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From a Vygotskian perspective, collaborative problem solving among peers offers some
of the same experiences for children as adult-child interactions. When children work jointly
on problems, they must come to some mutual understanding of the problem, procedures,
and solution. Children use speech to guide each other’s activities, and these social interac-
tions are gradually internalized as tools for regulating independent problem-solving efforts
in the future.
Piaget believed To study the processes by which peers influence learning and development, Jonathan
peer interaction Tudge (1993) paired nonconservers with conservers on a mathematical balance beam prob-
stimulates lem. The results showed that the less competent partner improved significantly on the bal-
thinking by ance beam task when paired with a peer who could reason about the problem at a more
creating advanced level. This study also suggested that the less competent partner needed to adopt
cognitive conflict the reasoning of the more competent partner while performing the task. That is, mere ex-
situations; posure to a higher level of thinking did not lead to improvements in the less competent
Vygotsky believed partner’s use of problem-solving rules. Of even greater importance was the finding that
peer interaction there were some circumstances under which children’s thinking may be adversely affected
stimulates by a peer. This decline is most likely to occur when children are not provided any feedback
thinking through after working on a problem or when they are not confident about their reasoning. Under
cognitive these conditions, children’s thinking may be negatively influenced by social interactions
cooperation. that are slightly behind their current level of thinking (Tudge, 1993).
Although Tudge’s study provides support for Vygotsky’s ideas about the cognitive ben-
efits of peer interactions, it also suggests that teachers need to carefully structure the con-
ditions under which children work together. In a review of Vygotskian research related to
the effects of peer interactions on development, Tudge and Rogoff (1989) conclude:

1. Young children may show limited cognitive benefits from peer interactions,
because they are unable to provide each other the type of scaffolded
assistance or guidance that older children and adults can provide.
 Focus on Teaching

Applications of Piaget’s Theory Applications of Vygotsky’s Theory

• Provide opportunities for students to • Use guided participation in which

communicate through symbols—art, students can be apprentices in learning.
writing, drama, mathematical formulas, Use modeling and verbal cues to guide
and so on. students learning, gradually giving the
• Provide a range of “real world” students more responsibility for carrying
experiences to serve as foundations for out the learning activity on their own.
building new concepts, and provide • Model “thinking aloud” when problem
opportunities for children to choose solving with students, and encourage
activities of interest to them. students to “talk themselves” through
• For young learners, use concrete objects, challenging problems.
visual aids, and other teaching tools • Provide opportunities for students to
(videotapes, geoboards, Unifix cubes) collaborate on learning activities
for teaching abstract and unfamiliar together. Peers are important role
concepts. models for problem solving, and
• Provide opportunities for students to learning is facilitated when have
explore, experiment, apply knowledge, opportunities to explain ideas and
and to engage in “hands on” learning. resolve controversies with other
• Ask students to explain their reasoning students. Interactions with equal or
and help them to find inconsistencies. more skilled peers have the most
Suggest alternative explanations to positive benefits.
consider. • Direct learning and assessment toward
• Provide opportunities for students to students’ zone of proximal development
express opinions, discuss, debate, and By providing sufficient instructional
receive feedback from peers. supports (cues, suggestions, assistance),
help students perform challenging tasks.
Gradually withdraw the support when
they are able to perform the task on
their own.

2. Adult-child interactions may be more beneficial than peer interactions when

children are first learning new skills or concepts.
3. Peer interactions are most effective when partners must achieve a shared
understanding of a topic or problem and work toward a shared goal.

Putting Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories Together

We have examined important distinctions between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories, now it
time to consider some common themes in this last section. As we have discussed, both theo-
ries serve as the foundation for constructivist approaches in education. Piaget and Vygotsky
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Chapter 3 Cognitive Development: Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theories

both believed that cognitive development involved changes in children’s abilities to repre-
sent knowledge in terms of more abstract forms such as symbols, logical rules, principles,
concepts, and so forth. Both theorists also emphasize that children are not passive recipi-
ents of knowledge. Piaget focused on how children constructed knowledge by ordering,
transforming, and reorganizing existing knowledge, whereas Vygotsky described how chil-
dren constructed internal representations of mental operations learned through social inter-
actions with adults and peers. Finally, both theories maintain that teachers serve as
important organizers, stimulators, guides, and supporters of learning. The Teaching Focus
box summarizes some ways the two theories can be applied in the classroom.

Chapter Summary
Constructive Approaches to Education
• Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development provide the
psychological foundations for constructivist approaches to teaching and learning.
Constructivists believe that children must form their own understanding of the
world in which they live. Adults help guide this knowledge construction process by
providing structure and support.
• Both Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development are concerned with
qualitative changes in children’s thinking. Piaget argued that cognitive
development involved major transformations in the way knowledge is organized.
Vygotsky believed that cognitive development represented changes in the cultural
tools children use to make sense of their world.

Piaget’s Theory of Development

• Piaget proposed that two basic principles guide children’s intellectual development:
organization and adaptation. As children mature, their knowledge schemes are
integrated and reorganized into more complex systems that are better adapted to
their environment. Adaptation of knowledge schemes occurs through the process of
assimilation and accommodation. Through the process of assimilation, children
mold information to fit existing knowledge structures. Through the process of
accommodation, children change their schemes to restore a state of equilibrium.
The process of assimilation and accommodation explains changes in cognition at
all ages.
• Piaget proposed that development follows an invariant sequence. The early
childhood years are characterized by two stages. During the sensorimotor period
(birth to 2 years), children acquire schemes for goal-directed behavior and object
permanence. In the preoperational stage (2 to 7 years), children begin to use words,
numbers, gestures, and images to represent objects in their environment. Children
also begin to form intuitive theories to explain events in their environment that can
have a lasting influence on learning. The major limitations of preoperational
thinking are egocentricism, centration, and rigidity of thinking.
 • The elementary and secondary school years are characterized by two additional
stages. During the concrete operational stage (7 to 11 years), children begin to use
mental operations to think about events and objects in their environment. The
mental operations that appear in this stage are classification, seriation, and
conservation. These mental operations can only be applied to concrete stimuli that
are present in the child’s environment. In the last stage of cognitive development,
formal operations (11 years to adult), adolescents and adults can think about
abstract objects, events, and concepts. They develop the ability to use propositional
logic, inductive and deductive logic, and combinatorial reasoning. Formal
operational thinkers are also able to reflect on their own thinking processes.
• Piaget’s theory has generated a lot of controversy and criticism. Concerns have
been raised about Piaget’s research methods, the adequacy of the equilibration
model for explaining developmental changes, and the universality of Piaget’s
stages. Nevertheless, Piaget’s research provides a rich description of children’s
thinking at different ages.
• Neo-Piagetian theories have attempted to add greater specificity to Piaget’s theory,
while maintaining its basic assumptions that cognitive development is qualitative
and stagelike. Neo-Piagetian theorists examine the role of children’s information
processing capabilities in explaining developmental changes.
• Piaget’s theory has inspired major curriculum reforms, and it continues to have an
important influence on education practice today. Among Piaget’s major
contributions to education are the ideas that (a) knowledge must be actively
constructed by the child; (b) educators should help children learn how to learn; (c)
learning activities should be matched to the child’s level of conceptual
development; and (d) peer interactions play an important role in the child’s
cognitive development. Piaget’s theory also emphasizes the role of teachers in the
learning process as organizers, collaborators, stimulators, and guides.

Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

• When compared with Piaget, Vygotsky places a stronger emphasis on social
interactions. Knowledge is not individually constructed, but coconstructed between
two people. Remembering, problem solving, planning, and abstract thinking have a
social origin.
• In Vygotsky’s theory, elementary cognitive functions are transformed into higher
mental functions through interactions with more knowledgeable adults and peers.
Internalization refers to the process of constructing an internal (cognitive)
representation of physical actions or mental operations that first occur in social
interactions. Through internalizing elements of social interactions, children develop
ways of regulating their own behavior and thinking.
• Vygotsky described developmental changes in children’s thinking in terms of the
cultural tools they use to make sense of their world. Technical tools are generally
used to change objects or to gain mastery over the environment, whereas
psychological tools are used to organize behavior or thought. In Vygotsky’s view,
society shapes the child’s mind through the transmission of tools that are
appropriate for functioning in that culture. The history of both the culture and the
child’s experiences are important for understanding cognitive development.
• Vygotsky believed that language was the most important psychological tool that
influences children’s cognitive development. He identified three different stages in
children’s use of language. At first, language is primarily used for communication
(social speech). Next, children begin to use egocentric or private speech to regulate
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 their own thinking. Talking aloud or whispering while performing a task are forms
of private speech. In the last stage of language development, children use inner
speech (verbal thoughts) to guide their thinking and actions.
• Vygotsky used the term zone of proximal development to refer to the difference
between what children can do on their own and with the assistance of others. If an
adult or peer carefully provides an appropriate level of support and guidance,
children are generally able to perform at a higher level than they can perform on
their own. Vygotsky assumed that interactions with adults and peers in the zone of
proximal development helps children move to higher levels of mental functioning.

Comparisons between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s Theory

• There are several important distinctions between Piaget’s and Vygotsky’s theories.
The most important ones for educators concern the role of language and learning in
development. Whereas Piaget believed that egocentric speech plays no useful
function in young children’s development, Vygotsky argued that egocentric speech
is the means by which children organize and regulate their thoughts and actions.
With regard to learning, Piaget claimed that development limits what children are
capable of learning from social experiences. For Vygotsky, instruction by more
knowledgeable peers or adults is at the heart of cognitive development.
• Vygotsky’s writings are beginning to have a major impact on education in the
United States. Among the major educational contributions of Vygotsky’s theory are
the role of private speech in cognitive development, the importance of guided
participation and scaffolding, and the role of peer interactions in cognitive
development. Palincsar and Brown developed the reciprocal teaching procedure
that incorporates several features of Vygotsky’s theory. This procedure has been
used successfully with elementary and secondary students.

Key Terms
Accommodation Egocentricism Matrix Sensorimotor
Adaptation Egocentric classification stage
Animism speech Metacognition Seriation
Assimilation Equilibration Object Social knowledge
Circular reactions Formal permanence Social speech
Centration operations Physical Zone of proximal
Guided knowledge development
Cognitive
behavior Participation Preoperational
modification Hierarchical stage
Collective classification Propositional
monologues Horizontal logic
Combinatorial decalage Realism
reasoning Hypo-deductive Reflective
Concrete thinking Abstraction
operation Internalization Representational
Conservation Logico- thinking
Constructivist mathematical Schemes
approach knowledge

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 Activities
1. Piaget used many different tasks to study children’s logic while performing operations
such as seriation, classification, and conservation. The purpose of this activity is to
examine how elementary school children of different ages perform Piagetian tasks.
Three simple tasks are described below. Using these tasks, individually test two
kindergarteners and two third-graders, and then compare their responses. Be sure to
ask children to explain their responses, to get at their logic and reasoning. If you do
these activities at school, you will need the teacher’s permission. After collecting your
data, answer the following questions: (a) Which tasks were the kindergarten and third-
grade children able to solve correctly? (b) How do the kindergarten children’s
responses reflect the limitations of preoperational thinking? (c) What types of cognitive
operations did the third-grade students use in solving the problems? (d) How did your
observations help you understand Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?
Task 1: Seriation
Use 5 to 10 sticks or strips of paper that vary in length from 1 to 10 inches. Begin by
asking students to place 3 sticks in order, then 5 sticks, and add 2 more sticks until the
student is unable to perform the task. Be sure to mix up the sticks each time, and
record the students’ responses.
Task 2: Conservation of Number
Use 12 coins of the same denomination (all pennies or dimes). Place 6 coins in one
row about a half inch apart, and place the other 6 coins below the first row. Ask the
student if the number of coins in each row is the same or different and then ask, “How
do you know?” Next, spread out the coins in the first row, so that each coin is several
inches from the others. Ask the student again if the number of coins in each row is the
same or different. Again ask, “How do know?” and record the students’ responses.
Task 3: Multiple Classification
Cut out geometric shapes (triangles, squares, and circles) from red, blue, and yellow
construction paper (3 colors per shape). Ask the student to sort the cutouts that go
together into different piles. Record how the student sorts the cutouts. Now, ask the
student if there is another way the cutouts can be sorted and record how they do the
second sort.
2. Observe two or three small groups of children working on a common task. Record the
way in which the children help one another to perform the task. After completing your
observations, answer the following questions.
a. Did you see evidence of the students directing, monitoring, or assisting one another?
b. How did the children negotiate roles? Did one student assume responsibility for
leading the activity?
c. Did you see evidence of scaffolding by the children or teacher? If so, describe some
examples of this scaffolding.
d. How did this activity help you understand Vygotsky’s concept of the zone of
proximal development?
3. Obtain permission to observe an elementary or secondary classroom (any subject) in a
local school. Observe three to four lessons in each classroom, and identify the
questions or problems that pose difficulty for the students. Describe the problems in
your observational notes. After collecting your observations, use Piaget’s theory of

171
 cognitive development to analyze the problems students encountered in their lessons.
Use the following questions to analyze your notes.
a. How are the problems related to limitations in the students’ concrete or formal
operational thinking?
b. What type of instructional support or scaffolding was available to help students
when they were having difficulty?
c. How did this observation help you understand different aspects of concrete or
formal operational thinking?
4. To assess students’ formal operational thinking, individually test two middle school
students and two high school students using the Piagetian tasks described below. Be
sure to use mixed-gender groups at each level. Ask students to think aloud as they do
the problems, and record their responses. If you do these tasks in a local school, you
will need the teacher’s permission. After collecting your data, answer the following
questions:
a. How did the students approach each task? Did they have a systematic plan that
considered all possible solutions or combinations. In task 1, did they systematically
manipulate each variable and test its effect?
b. What differences did you observe between the responses of the younger and older
adolescents? Did you see evidence of formal operational reasoning in either, both, or
neither groups of adolescents? Do your observations support Piaget’s theory?
c. Did you find evidence of gender differences in students’ responses? How would you
account for these findings?
Task 1: Pendulum Problem
For this task, you will need three different lengths of string and four different weights
that can be attached to the string. Instruct your students to experiment with the string
and weights in order to determine which variable(s) makes the pendulum go faster or
slower. They should consider four variables: the length of the string, the different
weights, the force of the initial push, and the height at which they let go of the
pendulum.
Task 2: Sandwich Combinations
For this task, you need to write on a piece of paper four different breads (white, rye,
sourdough, and wheat), four different meats (ham, beef, turkey, and salami), and four
different spreads (mayonnaise, mustard, butter, and ketchup). For each sandwich, they
can only use one bread, one meat, and one spread. Ask your students to figure out how
many different sandwich combinations they can make. The students may want to use
pencil and paper for this task.

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