Piaget's theory of cognitive development: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 18:54, 22 May 2025

Latest revision as of 15:31, 16 July 2025

Line 6:

In 1919, while working at the Alfred Binet Laboratory School in [[Paris]], Piaget "was intrigued by the fact that children of different ages made different kinds of mistakes while solving problems".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Franzoi |first=Stephen L. |title=Essentials of Psychology |publisher=BVT Publishing |year=2014 |isbn=9781618826947 |edition=5th |___location=Redding, CA |pages=119}}</ref> His experience and observations at the [[Alfred Binet]] Laboratory were the beginnings of his theory of cognitive development.<ref>{{Citation|last=Piaget|first=Jean|title=Jean Piaget.|date=1952|url=http://content.apa.org/books/11154-011|work=A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol IV.|pages=237–256|editor-last=Boring|editor-first=Edwin G.|place=Worcester|publisher=Clark University Press|language=en|doi=10.1037/11154-011|access-date=2021-02-28|editor2-last=Werner|editor2-first=Heinz|editor3-last=Langfeld|editor3-first=Herbert S.|editor4-last=Yerkes|editor4-first=Robert M.|url-access=subscription}}</ref>

He believed that children of different ages made different mistakes because of the "quality rather than quantity" of their intelligence.<ref name=McLeod/> Piaget proposed four stages to describe the developmentcognitive processdevelopment of children: the sensorimotor stage, pre-operationalthe preoperational stage, the concrete operational stage, and the formal operational stage.<ref>{{Citation |last=Bovet |first=Magali |title=Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development and Individual Differences |date=1976 |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-46323-5_20 |work=Piaget and His School |pages=269–279 |place=Berlin, Heidelberg |publisher=Springer Berlin Heidelberg |doi=10.1007/978-3-642-46323-5_20 |isbn=978-3-540-07248-5 |access-date=2022-07-07|url-access=subscription }}</ref> Each stage describes a specific age group. In each stage, he described how children develop their [[cognitive skill]]s. For example, he believed that children experience the world through actions, representing things with words, thinking logically, and using [[reasoning]].

To Piaget, [[cognitive development]] was a progressive reorganisation of mental processes resulting from biological maturation and environmental experience. He believed that children construct an understanding of the world around them, experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in their environment, then adjust their ideas accordingly.<ref name=McLeod>{{cite web|last=McLeod|first=S. A.|title=Jean Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development|url=http://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html|website=www.simplypsychology.org|access-date=18 September 2012}}</ref> Moreover, Piaget claimed that cognitive development is at the centre of the human organism, and language is contingent on knowledge and understanding acquired through cognitive development.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://search.credoreference.com/content/entry/edinburghthinkl/jean_piaget/0|title=JEAN PIAGET - Key Thinkers in Linguistics and the Philosophy of Language - Credo Reference|website=search.credoreference.com}}</ref> Piaget's earlier work received the greatest attention.