This document provides concise essay plans for A-Level Psychology, focusing on cognition and development. Students will find structured frameworks that cover key concepts, theories, and empirical research in cognitive and developmental psychology. These essay plans serve as a valuable resource for ...
Outline + evaluate Piaget’s theory of cognitive development
Piaget argued that children don’t know less than adults, they just think
differently. He suggested that children go through a series of stages in the
development of their thinking. He also suggested that motivation plays an
important role in learning and drives how learning takes place. Infants are
born with a few schema, which is the way our knowledge of the world is
represented in the mind. One of these schema is the ‘me-schema’, in
which all the child’s knowledge about themselves is stored. Cognitive
development involves the construction of schema which becomes
increasingly detailed about people, objects, actions and more abstract
concepts. When a child can’t make sense of the world because the
schema they have is insufficient, they feel a sense of disequilibrium which
is uncomfortable. To get rid of this and adapt to the new situation, the
child explores and learns more, resulting in a state of equilibrium.
Equilibrium is a nice state of balance and happens when experiences in
the world match our current schema. Assimilation occurs when new
experiences are understood with existing schema. This takes place when
the new experience doesn’t radically change our understanding of the
schema so we can incorporate the new experience into our existing
schema. For example, incorporating an apple into the existing schema of
fruit. Accommodation involves the creation of a whole new schema or
major changes to the existing one.
One strength of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is that it has
research support. Howe et al. put 9-12 year olds in groups to discuss how
objects move down a slope. They found that their level of knowledge and
understanding increased after the discussion. However, the children did
not reach the same conclusions or pick up the same facts about
movement down the slope. This means that children formed their own
individual mental representations (schemas) of the topic, as Piaget
predicted.
Another strength is that Piaget’s ideas revolutionised teaching. In the
1960s children sat copying work in school. Piaget changed the emphasis
to activity-based learning, where children develop their own
understanding through experience. This can also be seen as influencing A-
Level learning, for example, flipped learning, where students read up on
content at home, form their own mental representations on the topic and
then come to lessons to apply it. This shows how Piaget’s ideas have
inspired approaches which help individuals to develop their own mental
representations on the world. However, there is no real evidence to
support the idea that Piaget’s techniques for teaching are more effective
than any others. The input from the teacher might be the main factor
, (supporting Vygotsky). This means the value of Piaget’s theories to
education might have been exaggerated.
Additionally, a limitation is that Piaget underestimated the role of other
people play in learning. He acknowledged that other people were
important, for example, as sources of information. However, others, such
as Vygotsky, argued that you need someone with more knowledge to aid
the development of the learner’s knowledge. This is also supported by
evidence. This means that Piaget’s theory may be an incomplete
explanation for learning because he didn’t include the role of other people
in the learning process.
Outline + evaluate Piaget’s theory of intellectual development
Piaget’s theory explains how knowledge is acquired through schema and
disequilibrium / equilibrium. He also explained development as a series of
stages which are each characterised by a different level of reasoning
ability. All children go through the same sequence of stages. The first
stage is the sensorimotor stage, which occurs between the ages of 0 – 2
years. The baby focuses on physical sensations and basic coordination
between what they see and body movement. They also develop object
permanence which is the understanding that objects still exist when they
are out of sight. Before 8 months, babies switch their attention away from
an object that is out of sight but after 8 months, babies continue looking
for it which suggests that they understand that objects continue to exist
when out of sight. The second stage is the pre-operational stage (2 – 7
years old). Children are not able to master the concept of conservation
(that quantity remains the same even when the appearance of an object
changes). Children at this stage are egocentric – they are unaware of
other perspectives. This is demonstrated in Piaget’s three mountains task.
Children also struggle with class inclusion – they can classify objects into
categories but not sub-groups. The third stage is the concrete operations
stage which occurs between 7 – 11 years. Children have mastered
conservation and improving on egocentrism and class inclusion. However,
they are only able to reason on physical objects in their presence. The
final stage is the formal operations stage (11+). This is when abstract
reasoning develops, such as being able to think beyond the present.
Children can now focus on the structure of an argument and not be
distracted by the content.
One strength of Piaget’s stages of intellectual development is that they
can be applied to education. For example, abstract maths calculations are
difficult to teach pre-operational children. Piaget says that this is because
certain concepts can only be taught when children are ‘biologically ready’.
If this true, it suggests that the curriculum in schools needs to be
reassessed and amended in line with children’s development.
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