Complete second year Psychology exam questions and answers. Received a first in all examinations. Includes exam questions and answers from: Development across the Lifespan (PY2DAL), Linguistics 2 (PL2LING2), Cognitive and Biological Psychology(PY2CBP), and Social Psychology and Individual Differenc...
Compare and contrast Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive development,
providing empirical examples to illustrate your argument.
Both Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories made valuable contribution to the understanding of
cognitive development and the teaching of children. They are both significant theories that
take different stances towards what best aids cognitive development. For Piaget, cognitive
development is far more individualistic and comes from within the child. While for
Vygotsky, cognitive development is socially constructed and supported by the help of peers
and experts. While both theories are supported, Piaget’s theory appears to have more
limitations in the way that it underestimates or overlooks different factors that may affect
cognitive development. In this essay, Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories of cognitive
development will be compared on their emphasis on the role of others, the role of language
and if they underestimate the abilities of children.
For the role of others, Vygotsky emphasises that cognitive development is a socially
mediated process. On the other hand, a major criticism of Piaget’s theory is that it
underemphasises the role of social help like teachers and parents in helping develop a child’s
abilities. Wood et al. (1976) observed children attempting to build models out of blocks with
their mothers. They found that the support the mothers offered fell into three main categories:
general encouragement, specific instructions and direct demonstration. They reported that no
single strategy of support was the most effective at helping the child. Rather, the mother’s
varying strategies depending on how much support the child needed was the most effective
way to encourage their task. This could look like starting with general encouragement and
observing if the child needs more support. Then, the mothers could offer specific instructions
followed by direct demonstration if the child required further aid. Once the child was able to
continue without as much aid, mothers would often reduce the amount of support or
scaffolding offered. This helped the children succeed in a task they would not have been able
to do on their own without guidance. This research clearly evidences the importance of the
role of experts in supporting the cognitive development of children. This research, therefore,
aligns with Vygotsky’s theory and highlights a pitfall of Piaget’s theory that does not
acknowledge interpersonal support.
, The purpose of language is another area in which Piaget and Vygotsky’s theories differ.
Vygotsky believed that language development leads to a qualitative change in cognition.
Vygotsky understood private speech as a way for children to strategise and well-regulate their
behaviour. Therefore, it is deemed integral to development and a precursor to internalised
thought. On the other hand, Piaget considered language egocentric. He deemed it unrelated to
thought and therefore unrelated to language. However, research supports Vygotsky’s beliefs
regarding the importance of speech. Montero et al. (2014) experimentally evidenced that
performance ability depends on task difficulty and private speech. They had a sample of
Caucasian, Spanish speaker complete Chinese puzzles ranked into seven difficulty levels.
They found that the number of self-addressed utterances increased in three to seven year olds
as task difficulty increased. Montero et al. (2014) also reported that private speech was not
associated with improvement as the easiest level of task but had a significant impact in harder
levels. Thus, this research validates Vygotsky’s theory and again illustrates an oversight in
Piaget’s theory.
Finally, another way in which the two theories can be compared is by evaluating if they
accurately recognise the cognitive abilities children are capable of. This is a criticism of
Piaget’s research as he has been accused of underestimating what children are able to do
based on his flawed methodology. Research has reliably shown that cognitive development
milestones occur earlier than Piaget assumed. For example, children have been shown to
understand object permanence in the first few months of life, even though they are
underdeveloped in their motor coordination to express this easily (Maclean, 2001). These
oversights may be explained because of the less sophisticated experimental techniques
available to Piaget at the time. However, another limitation made against his research was the
type of tests he used. Berk (2001) reported that 40–60% of university students failed Piaget’s
formal operations problems. This clearly evidenced that the tasks Piaget used may be too
unfamiliar and complicated for the children he tested, meaning he would then underestimate
their capacities. On the other hand, Vygotsky can be interpreted as less likely to
underestimate the capacities of children. While the zone of proximal development recognises
there are tasks the learner is not able to do even with assistance, the idea that children can
achieve beyond what may be initially assumed on their own explains more of their
capabilities.
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