Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development

The claim is the order, not the ages

Almost everybody who revises this theory learns a table. Four stages, four age ranges, four sets of things children can and cannot do. Then they learn the ages. ⚠️⚠️ THE AGES ARE THE PART OF THE THEORY MOST LIKELY TO BE WRONG, AND THEY ARE NOT WHAT PIAGET IS CLAIMING. Look at the word your specification uses. It calls the four stages INVARIANT. That word is the whole theory, and it is worth stopping on, because it is easy to read past. ⭐ "CHILDREN THINK DIFFERENTLY AS THEY GET OLDER" IS NOT A THEORY AT ALL. IT IS AN OBSERVATION, EVERYBODY ALREADY AGREES WITH IT, AND NOTHING COULD EVER SHOW IT TO BE FALSE. Piaget said something much braver than that. He said there are four stages. He said they come in ONE ORDER. He said that order CANNOT CHANGE. And he said NO STAGE CAN BE SKIPPED. ⭐⭐ THAT IS A CLAIM WITH A SHAPE, BECAUSE IT FORBIDS THINGS. IT SAYS CERTAIN THINGS WILL NEVER BE OBSERVED. AND A CLAIM THAT FORBIDS THINGS CAN BE TESTED, WHICH IS WHAT MAKES IT A THEORY RATHER THAN A DESCRIPTION. Now hold that word while you meet the famous criticism, because this is where students lose marks. Later researchers took Piaget's tasks and made them simpler, or set them in situations children found more familiar. Children then succeeded at ages younger than Piaget's timetable said they should. ⚠️ THAT LOOKS LIKE THE END OF THE THEORY. IT IS NOT, AND SAYING WHY IS WORTH REAL MARKS. ⭐ THOSE FINDINGS ATTACK THE AGES. THEY SUGGEST PIAGET'S TASKS WERE HARDER THAN THEY NEEDED TO BE, SO CHILDREN LOOKED LESS CAPABLE THAN THEY WERE. ⭐⭐ WHAT THEY DO NOT SHOW IS A CHILD RUNNING THE STAGES IN A DIFFERENT ORDER, OR MISSING ONE OUT. So the timetable takes the damage and the sequence is left standing. An answer that says "the theory was disproved" has missed that. An answer that says which half was attacked is doing psychology. ⭐ CARRY ONE QUESTION THROUGH EVERYTHING THAT FOLLOWS: IS THIS ABOUT THE ORDER, OR ABOUT THE AGE?

Four stages, and what each one cannot yet do

The sequence, with the ages given as the rough guides they are. What matters for the theory is that they come in this order.

Tap what invariant actually commits you to

Tap the TWO statements that Piaget is committed to by calling the stages invariant.

• Every child passes through the stages in the same order as every other child
• No child reaches a later stage without having been through the earlier ones
• Every child reaches each stage at the same age
• Every child eventually reaches the final stage

Not simply getting better at thinking

A student writes that Piaget's theory says children get better at thinking as they grow up. The sentence is true. Why does it not describe the theory?

• Because it forbids nothing. Piaget claimed the stages come in a fixed order that cannot change and cannot be skipped, and it is that stronger claim which can be tested
• Because children do not in fact get better at thinking as they grow up
• Because it fails to name the four stages
• Because it does not give the ages for each stage

Five terms for the four stages

Five terms, each defined by what it is. The first two are the engine; the rest are things the stages are known by.

Match each behaviour to what it shows

Two that follow from an invariant sequence

Select the TWO statements that follow from Piaget claiming the stages are invariant.

• Findings that children succeed earlier than expected attack the ages rather than the sequence, so the theory is damaged but not destroyed
• The idea of readiness in education only makes sense if the order is fixed, since a child who could skip a stage would have nothing to be ready for
• Every child reaches each stage at the age Piaget gave
• Evidence of children succeeding early shows the whole theory was disproved

Using the reductionism lens properly

Your specification does not leave the criticism of this theory open. It names the lens: Piaget is to be criticised through REDUCTIONISM and HOLISM. ⚠️ AND THE COMMONEST WAY TO LOSE THOSE MARKS IS TO NAME THE LABEL AND STOP. ⭐⭐ SO SAY THE ARGUMENT UNDERNEATH IT INSTEAD. Reductionism means explaining something complicated by breaking it into something simpler. Piaget explains the whole of a child's mental growth in terms of stages and the structures underneath them. THE STRENGTH OF DOING THAT IS REAL AND SHOULD BE SAID FIRST. ⭐ A SIMPLER EXPLANATION CAN BE TESTED. Because Piaget reduced development to a fixed sequence, people could design tasks, watch children, and find out whether he was right. A richer and vaguer account could not have been checked at all. THE OBJECTION IS ALSO REAL. A holistic account says a child's thinking does not develop in a sealed box, and that the people around them, the language they hear, what they are taught and what their culture expects are all part of the explanation rather than background to it. ⚠️ A STAGE MODEL HAS NO OBVIOUS PLACE TO PUT ANY OF THAT. ⭐ THEN GIVE THE SPECIFIC VERSION, BECAUSE A GENERAL OBJECTION IS WORTH LESS THAN A PARTICULAR ONE: when a task was made simpler or more familiar, children did better. That is a social and situational influence on performance, and it is precisely the kind of thing the stage account does not weigh. A shape that works on any evaluate-this-theory question here: SAY WHAT THE THEORY CLAIMS, IN ITS STRONG FORM, which for Piaget is the invariant sequence rather than the ages. SAY WHAT THE EVIDENCE ACTUALLY SHOWED, and be careful about which part of the claim it touched. ⭐ SAY WHICH HALF SURVIVES. Here, the timetable takes the damage and the sequence is left standing. THEN APPLY THE NAMED LENS, AS AN ARGUMENT AND NOT AS A WORD. ⚠️ THREE HABITS THAT COST MARKS. ⚠️ THE FIRST IS "PIAGET WAS DISPROVED". Too strong, and it throws away the part you could have defended. ⚠️ THE SECOND IS TREATING THE AGES AS THE THEORY. They are his estimate. Attacking them is easy and it is not the same as attacking him. ⚠️ AND THE THIRD IS NAMING A STUDY YOU CANNOT QUITE REMEMBER. ⭐ "LATER RESEARCHERS FOUND CHILDREN SUCCEEDED EARLIER WHEN THE TASK WAS MADE SIMPLER" IS ACCURATE AND SAFE. A HALF-REMEMBERED NAME ATTACHED TO THE WRONG FINDING COSTS MORE THAN IT ADDS.

Two glasses, and a task made fairer

This is the demonstration everybody remembers, and it is worth walking through slowly, because what happened next to it is the interesting part. A child is shown two identical short wide glasses, filled to the same level. They agree there is the same amount in each. Nobody is in any doubt. Then, while the child watches, the contents of one glass are poured into a tall thin glass. Nothing is added. Nothing is taken away. The child sees the whole thing happen. The child is asked again: is there the same amount, or does one have more? ⭐ A YOUNGER CHILD SAYS THE TALL GLASS HAS MORE. AND THEY ARE NOT BEING CARELESS. THEY ARE ANSWERING THE QUESTION THEY HEARD, USING THE MOST OBVIOUS FEATURE IN FRONT OF THEM, WHICH IS THAT THE LEVEL IS HIGHER. Piaget's reading of this is that the child cannot yet hold two things at once. The liquid is taller, and it is also narrower, and those two changes cancel out. Weighing both at the same time is what the child cannot do yet, so one striking feature wins. An older child says it is the same, and often looks faintly insulted at being asked, which Piaget took as the arrival of a real logical operation. ⚠️⚠️ NOW THE PART THAT MATTERS FOR YOUR EVALUATION. LOOK AT THE TASK ITSELF RATHER THAN THE CHILD. An adult asks a question. The child answers. The adult then does something deliberate and asks the SAME question again. ⭐⭐ A CHILD MIGHT REASONABLY CONCLUDE THAT THE FIRST ANSWER WAS WRONG. WHY ELSE WOULD A GROWN-UP ASK TWICE? That is the criticism later researchers pressed, and they pressed it by changing the task rather than by arguing about it. Make the change look accidental rather than deliberate. Ask the question only once. Set it in something a child already understands. ⭐ AND CHILDREN BEGAN GETTING IT RIGHT YOUNGER THAN THE TIMETABLE SAID. ⭐ SO WHAT WAS THE ORIGINAL TASK MEASURING? Partly the child's thinking, and partly how they read an adult repeating themselves. ⚠️ AND NOW THE SENTENCE THAT EARNS THE MARKS: THAT FINDING MOVES THE AGE. IT DOES NOT SHOW A CHILD SKIPPING A STAGE, OR TAKING THEM IN A DIFFERENT ORDER. THE TIMETABLE TOOK THE DAMAGE AND THE SEQUENCE IS STILL STANDING.

Order the four stages

Put Piaget's four stages into the order he said they must always come in.

• Sensori-motor: knowing the world by moving and sensing, and coming to grasp that hidden things still exist
• Pre-operational: language and imagination, but thinking still tied to how things look and to one's own viewpoint
• Concrete operational: logical operations that work on real things, including conservation and reversibility
• Formal operational: thinking that works on ideas, including reasoning about what would follow if something were true

Build the sentence that survives the criticism

This is the sentence that turns a named criticism into an evaluation. Assemble it.

The cognitive development run

Five questions on what the theory claims and what the evidence touched. Three lives.

Complete the cognitive development facts

Fitting a new experience into an idea about the world the child already has is _____. Changing an existing idea because a new experience will not fit it is _____. Understanding that something carries on existing even when it cannot be seen is _____. Difficulty in setting aside one's own viewpoint to take somebody else's is _____.

Reducing development to stages

Asked to criticise Piaget through reductionism, a student writes that the theory is reductionist. The statement is correct. What has been left out?

• The argument underneath the label: that reducing development to a fixed sequence is what made it testable, and that it leaves little room for the people, language and teaching around the child
• Nothing: naming the correct lens is what the question asked for
• The word holism, which should have been used instead
• The name of a study showing the theory is reductionist

Three claims to make precise

Three student answers on Piaget. Each contains something true, and each is one step away from earning what it should.

• An answer states that later research disproved Piaget, because children were shown to manage tasks before the ages he gave. How would you make it precise?
• An answer explains the conservation demonstration accurately and concludes that younger children simply cannot think logically. What is the weakness?
• An answer supports its evaluation by naming a specific study and a researcher, but the student is not certain they have matched the name to the right finding. What should they do?

Explain the stages and what attacks them

Explain Piaget's theory of cognitive development and evaluate it. Set out what the theory claims in its strong form, then assess how far the evidence against it goes.

• Open by stating the theory in its strong form: four stages in a fixed order that cannot change and cannot be skipped, with the ages given as approximate
• Name the four stages in order and give one thing that characterises each
• Explain assimilation and accommodation as the process by which a child moves through the sequence
• Describe one demonstration, such as the conservation task, and say what Piaget concluded from it
• Give the criticism properly: children succeeded earlier once tasks were simplified or made more familiar, and say what that suggests the original tasks were partly measuring
• Say precisely which part of the theory that damages and which part survives, rather than concluding that the theory was disproved
• Finish with the reductionism and holism lens as an argument rather than a label, giving both what the simplification bought and what it leaves out