Jean Piaget's contributions to cognitive and developmental psychology

Jean Piaget: BIOGRAPHY & ACCOMPLISHMENTS

In the past few decades, theories of cognitive psychology have been applied to many different aspects of modern life. The study of cognitive psychology has been applied to many educational reform efforts that seek to implement new and better methods of teaching children. One such cognitive psychologist, Jean Piaget, is most noted for his studies and philosophy regarding the actions of children. Although he never taught children, Piaget has been hailed as an educator as a result of his many writings on the manner in which children think and learn. Piaget was a Swiss philosopher and psychologist that spent much of his professional life listening to children, watching children and studying the available research on children's actions and thought processes. The main idea underlying Piaget's theory was that children do not think like grownups, and after thousands of interactions with young people often barely old enough to talk, Piaget began to suspect that behind their cute and seemingly illogical utterances were thought processes that had their own kind of order and their own special logic (Pappert, 1999). Piaget's insight opened a new window into the inner workings of the mind, and he developed several new fields of science, including developmental psychology, cognitive theory and what came to be called genetic epistemology (Pappert, 1999). Although Piaget is not as famous as some of the other historic psychologists, his contribution to psychology is irreplaceable.

The Early Years

Piaget grew up near Lake Neuchatel in a quiet region of French Switzerland; his father was a professor of medieval studies and his mother a strict Calvinist (Pappert, 1999).

As a young child he was fascinated by the scientific study of nature, and published his first biology paper on the albino sparrow when he was ten years old. The main reason why he wrote this paper was so that the librarian would stop treating him like a child. When he was 15 years old his work in the area of scientific controversy was published, and his interest in psychology emerged. In Piaget's words, "I had the rare privilege of catching a glimpse of science and what it represented before I went through the philosophical crises of adolescence. The early experience of what these two sets of problems constituted, I am sure, the hidden inspiration for my subsequent activity in psychology (Munari, 1994)." Thus, Piaget's reasoning was that the scientific approach was the only valid way of gaining access to knowledge.

After World War I, Piaget became interested in psychoanalysis and moved to Zurich, where he attended Carl Jung's lectures, and then to Paris to study logic and abnormal psychology. In Paris, Piaget studied children, and that children of the same age made similar errors on true-false intelligence tests. At this time he was working for the co-author of an intelligence scale test, and he was working on standardizing reasoning tests on children in Paris. In the beginning, he mainly studied children in the hospitals, and worked in medical laboratories dealing with sick or handicapped children. Fascinated by their reasoning processes, he began to suspect that the key to human knowledge might be discovered by observing how the child's mind develops (Pappert, 1999). After he returned to Switzerland, he began to study children in their normal surroundings, watching children play, and recorded their words and actions as their minds raced to find reasons for why things are the way they are. In one of his most famous experiments, Piaget asked several children what made the wind. After the children answered, he would ask them how did they know, and after they answered, he would ask them how did they know that made the wind. He would then continue to ask them related questions, and noted that while their answers were not correct according to adult reasoning, their answers were not incorrect either. Piaget noted that classifying their answers as true or false was unacceptable, for it displayed a lack of respect for the child.

Piaget summarized his studies on children stating that "children have real understanding only of that which they invent themselves, and each time that we try to teach them something too quickly, we keep them from reinventing it themselves (Pappert, 1999)." As a result, Piaget became to believe that intelligence is a form of adapt ion, wherein knowledge is constructed by each individual through the two complimentary processes or assimilation and accommodation. He theorized that as children interact with their physical and social environments, they organize information into groups of interrelated ideas called "schemes (Indiana.edu, 2006)." Piaget believed that when children experience something for the first time or something new, they must either assimilate it into an existing scheme or create an entirely new scheme to deal with it. Piaget called his general theoretical framework "genetic epistemology" because he was primarily interested in how knowledge developed in human organisms. He combined philosophy and science, to form cognitive psychology.

Piaget believed that infants are born with schemes operating at birth, where in animals, these reflexes control behavior throughout life. However, in human beings as the infant uses these reflexes to adapt to the environment, these reflexes are quickly replaced with constructed schemes (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). According to Piaget, assimilation is the process of using or transforming the environment so that it can be placed in preexisting cognitive structures. Accommodation is the process of changing cognitive structures in order to accept something from the environment. Both processes are used simultaneously and alternately throughout life; and example of assimilation would be when an infant uses a sucking schema that was developed by sucking on a small bottle when attempting to suck on a larger bottle (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). An example of accommodation would be when the child needs to modify a sucking schema developed by sucking on a pacifier to one that would be successful for sucking on a bottle (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). As schemes become increasingly more complex, they become structures, which in turn are organized in a hierarchical manner, such as from general to specific.

Piaget's Influence on Education

Piaget's theory of stages has had a profound influence on education, and his ideas have been at the center of many educational reforms. Attempts have even been made to correlate performance on Piagetian conservation tasks with standardized intelligence test scores, and the results have been mixed (Indiana.edu, 2006). Piaget's form of standardized testing varies greatly from the typical standardized tests. For example, in Piaget's standardized tests, in addition to recording a child's correct and incorrect responses, the test administrator would also have to ask the child to explain why he answered the question the way he did. Piaget suggested that one way to reconcile these two approaches would be to adopt a method clinique, whereby a traditional intelligence test could serve as the basis for a clinical interview (Indiana.edu. 2006). Piaget's work has influenced other educators and philosophers who share the same respect for children. Examples are John Dewey, Maria Montessori and Paulo Freire, who have fought harder for immediate change in schools. Additionally, Piaget has been revered by generations of teachers inspired by the belief that children are not empty vessels to be filled with knowledge but active builders of knowledge, and little scientists who are constantly creating and testing their own theories of the world (Pappert, 1999).

Piaget's key concepts that have influenced educational reform are as follows: 1). Children will provide different explanations of reality at different stages of cognitive development; 2). Cognitive development is facilitated by providing activities or situations that engage learners and require adaptation (i.e., assimilation and accommodation); 3). Learning materials and activities should involve the appropriate level of motor or mental operations for a child of given age; avoid asking students to perform tasks that are beyond their current cognitive capabilities; and 4). Use teaching methods that actively involve students and present challenges. These concepts have been applied in education and teaching throughout the world.

A review of the research on Piaget's theory indicates that a great number of pre-school and primary programs are modeled on his theory. Learning theories that have emerged out of Piaget's analysis of children are constructivist learning and discovery learning. Both of these forms of learning are taught by teachers that challenge the child's abilities, but do not present material or information that is too far beyond the child's level. A review of the literature in this area recommends that teachers use a wide variety of concrete experiences to help the child learn, such as the use of manipulatives and working in groups to get experience seeing from another's perspective (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). One such method based on Piaget's model of the manner in which young children learn is the building of literacy skills through storybook reading.

In one such study, different strategies were tested to determine the best way to teach children how to read at an early age through the use of storybooks. Research indicates that oral language consists of vocabulary and narrative development, phonological awareness is the understanding that oral language is made up of sounds or groups, and print awareness can best be described as the knowledge that print corresponds to speech, and the manner in which individuals read. Piaget's model of stages has been applied to assist teachers in the method that they use to facilitate the development of oral language, phonological awareness and print awareness through purposeful, fun, age and developmentally appropriate, storybook reading. For example, one study found that providing direct instruction of phonological awareness skills using words found in storybooks has two advantages: its assists children in understanding how phonetics, or the way in which words are pronounced, relates to print, and the use of familiar storybooks can serve to motivate the children, resulting in more reading (Allor & McCathren, 2003).

The study included an observation checklist to assist teachers when they are observing or grading the children based on Piaget's teachings. The list included such checklist items as: sentence length identification, identification of the compound words that are made up of smaller words, recognition of syllables, and correct pronunciation of three phoneme words. The study mentioned that these observations include knowing the difference between graphic displays of words and nonwords, understanding the function of empty space in establishing words boundaries, and understanding that reading occurs from right to left and top to bottom (Allor & McCathren, 2003). The study also takes into consideration the recognition of visual shapes of letters before reading, as well as the fact that letters can be exposed in different ways, such as by the use of blocks and magnetic letters. The study discusses how storybook reading can be used by teachers to facilitate learning in early students. Allor & McCathren (2003) discuss how storybook preview is used to introduce a new book or a follow up activity, and consists of teacher interaction with a small group of students. This method follows Piaget's understanding of the manner in which children learn, because the teachers are able to interact effectively with students, responding to and expanding on each child's language. All of these skills will assist the child in being able to read and understand what is read, in a manner that is fun and interesting. Furthermore, each step builds on the next step, much as in Piaget's model of stages. This study provides only one manner in which Piaget's theory has been successfully applied to the learning of children.

Criticisms of Piaget's Model

Although Piaget's model has been widely implemented in educational reform measures, in the late 1980's his theories began to lose their strength with the emergence of new forms of research. Studies have disagreed with the model of the transgression of stages presented by Piaget. For example, data from cross-sectional studies of adolescents do not support the assertion that all individuals will automatically move to the next cognitive stage as they biologically mature (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). In one such criticized study, data from adolescent populations indicates only 30 to 35% of high school seniors attain the cognitive development stage of formal operations (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). For formal operations, it appears that maturation establishes the basis, but a special environment is required for most adolescents and adults to attain this stage (Huitt & Hummel, 2003). This and other studies have criticized Piaget's model, mainly along the basis that maturation and learning do not occur in set stages. This makes sense because there are children of different ages that can complete different tasks as a result of their environment, not as a result of the manner in which they learn or are taught.

Conclusion

Piaget did note in his four stages that genetic constructivism was a factor in the rate and manner in which children learn, and as new genetic discoveries are made, his stages will either become modified or expanded on. Although other philosophers have explained growth and learning in stages, Piaget's stages were very different when they were first introduced and even new theories may be built on them in the future. Finally, although Piaget's theory of cognitive development has appeared to lose its momentum as a new philosophy in recent years, his contributions to the education of children are far-reaching. Modern theorists in this area will no doubt build on the stages set out by Piaget, perhaps improving his reasoning behind his theory. Education reform has only begun in many countries, so the availability and the potential for further studies in this area is very great. Limitations exist in the study of Piaget's method of standardized testing, and one area for further development in cognitive psychology could be further tests on his model of standardized testing. Finally, Piaget's model of learning will always be a part of educational reform now and for future generations of thinkers.