Discuss one or more applications of theories of cognitive ...

Discuss one or more applications of theories of cognitive development (e.g.. to
education).
Many psychologists have constructed theories relating to cognitive development. Cognitive development
concerns the mental changes that occur during an individual's lifetime. Children change and develop in
many ways between infancy and adolescence. Some of the most dramatic changes take place in terms of
cognitive development and individual differences play a big part in the way children develop although
children travel through the same ages, they don't all mature and learn at the same rate. Cultural differences
are also apparent in terms of cognitive development. Some cultures are much more engaged in child
development and learning than others, which results in some children developing cognitively before other
have begun.
The first systematic theory of cognitive development was proposed by Jean Piaget (1896-1980). Piaget's
theory is one of the most thorough accounts offered in terms of cognitive development as he was interested
in how children learn and adapt to the world. He thought that in order for adaptation or adjustment to
occur, there must be constant interactions between the child and the outside world: two processes were of
key importance. These were Accommodation - the individual's Cognitive organisation is altered by the
need to deal with the environment. And, Assimilation. The individual deals with new environmental
situations on the basis of his or her existing cognitive organisation. Piaget believed that children try to
understand experiences in terms of their existing cognitive structures (schemes). If there is a new
experience, or a mismatch between the new experience and existing schemes this creates an unpleasant
state of disequilibrium. The child then uses assimilation and accommodation to restore a state of
equilibrium (homeostasis). The disequilibrium motivates the child to learn new skills and knowledge to
return to the desired state of equilibrium.
Piaget argued that all children pass through stages. Despite the notion of coherence to each stage, Piaget
accepted that children in a given stage don't always adopt the mode of thought typical of that stage.
‘Horizontal decalage’ is the result- development is not an even process, some changes progress more
rapidly than others. Piaget identified four major stages of cognitive development. He believed that at each
of these stages there were changes in the way children think. The first stage is the sensory motor stages,
which lasts from birth to 2 years of age. In this stage the infant learns a great deal by moving around.
Initially the baby's schemes consist largely of inborn reflexes, but these reflexes change somewhat with
experience. The second is the preoperational stage. This lasts between the years of 2 and 7. The preoperational
child becomes more capable of symbolic learning. Seriation is part of this stage. Seriation tasks
require children to arrange objects in order on the basis of a single feature, e.g. height. Syncretic thought
follows this. Syncretic thought can be revealed on tasks where children are asked to select various objects
that are alike. The third is the concrete operations stage, which usually occurs between the ages of 7, 11
and 12. Piaget argued that the shift from pre-operational to concrete operational thinking involves an
increasing independence of thought from perception (the evidence of your senses). Underlying this shift is
the development of various cognitive operations of a logical or mathematical nature. The fourth stage is the
formal operations stage, and this happens at the age of 12+. Formal operations thought involves the ability
to think in terms of many possible states of the world. This means that ones thinking can go beyond the
limitations of immediate reality, so one isn't tied to perceptions and/or concrete reality. Thus, adolescents
and adults in this stage can think in an abstract way, as well as in the concrete way in the previous stage.
Piaget's theory has been very influential in the field of education. Parents and others use many of his
educational methods, very successfully, outside the school context. Piaget himself didn't focus on the
usefulness of his theory for educational practice. However, many people working in education have done
precisely that. For example, the Nuffield Science approach to education was based on the Piagetian notions
that children should be actively involved in learning, and that concrete practical work should precede the
more abstract aspects of science.
Piaget claimed that development depends very much on children learning a range of schema's or cognitive
structures, and that many of these schema's are based on mathematical or logical principles. In terms of this
theory, it makes sense to educate children in the areas of mathematics and logic, as well as science, which
provides illustrations of these principles at work
According to Piaget, what children can learn is determined by their current stage of cognitive development.
However, there is little support for this notion, as several attempts have been made to teach concrete
operations to pre-school children. Piaget believed that the ability to perform concrete operational tasks was

learned at about the age of 7. However, provision of suitable training to 4 year old pre schoolers, usually
leads to reasonably good performance on such tasks (Brainerd, 1983). In terms of this evidence, it seems
that Piaget underestimated the ability of children to cope with new kinds of intellectual challenge.
Thanks to Piaget's theory that children learn best when they engage in a process of active self-discovery, by
applying processes of both accommodation and assimilation, teachers can encourage this by creating a
state of disequilibrium. Asking children difficult questions can create this. The disequilibrium motivates
the child to learn new skills and knowledge to return to the desired state of equilibrium. According to
Piaget, children will obtain the most benefit from play groups and from toys when they are actively
involved in a process of self-discovery. In "mastery play" the child uses new motor schemas in several
different situations. This helps the child to strengthen their learning.
Piaget quoted "every time we teach a child something, we prevent them from discovering it on their own."
This has lead many teachers away from the passive approach of giving children the knowledge, and
encouraging children to teach themselves to a greater extent. Although this theory seems fairly logical, it
has been criticised. Brainerd, 1983, concluded that, although self-discovery training can produce learning,
it's generally less effective than tutorial learning.
A criticism of Piaget is that he didn't emphasise social factors and their role in promoting or inhibiting
learning. Neo-Piagetians , however, did emphasise the notion of social marking, which involves conflict
between an individual's cognitive understanding and some social rule. Doise et al (1981) studied
conservation in children between the ages of 4 and 6 who didn't initially show conservation. Social
marking was induced in some pairs of children by reminding them of the social rule that both children
deserved the same reward. Other pairs of children were not reminded of this rule. The children in
the social marking condition saw a conflict between the social rule and the apparently different
amounts of liquid in the two containers, and this helped them to show conservation. This approach
offers useful guidance to educators in suggesting what particular interventions are helpful.
The major weaknesses of Piaget's position are that; the cognitive structures he emphasised are of
rather limited value for many kinds of learning. It is not clear that concrete and formal operations
are of much relevance to the learning of foreign languages or of history. Thus, his approach only
applies to a small number of subjects taught at school. Although Piaget's ideas have influenced
educational practice in several countries, his theory and research were not conducted cross
culturally. Piaget's findings are more valuable to English culture, as English children think in
parts and then put this together to form the whole. Whereas, Maori, African and Aborigine children
think in Geshalt ways which involves thinking as a whole, and then breaking this down into the
relevant parts.
In support to Piaget, Kohlberg's theory (1966) highlighted that the child actively constructs his or
her own experiences and they are not products of social training. Kohlberg believed children to go
through 3 stages in terms of gender development. Basic gender identity, which lasts between the
ages of 2 and 3 and a half Boys and girls know their gender but believe it would be possible to
change sex. Then gender stability from the ages of 3 1/2 to 4 1 /a. There is an awareness that sex is
stable over time. And finally, gender consistence, from the ages of 4 '/z to 7+. Children at this stage
realise that sex remains the same over time and over situations.
Research supports the idea that gender identity does seem to develop through the stages proposed
by Kohlberg. However, there are various problems with Kohlberg's theory: e.g. gender role
behaviour is shown by most boys and girls by their second birthday. This is several years before
they have reached gender consistency. Therefore, it can be argued that not all gender role behaviour
depends on gender consistency.

Vygotsky emphasised the notion that cognitive development depends very largely on social factors. This
is different from Paiget in that the emphasis was on the individual acquiring knowledge through a process
of self-discovery. Social factors, or more generally "culture" play a key role in cognitive development
because, according to Vygotsky, they enable elementary mental functions (e.g. attention and sensation) to
be transformed into higher mental functions (e.g. problem solving and thinking). The concept of "culture"
refers to the body of knowledge that is held by books and experts, and that is largely transmitted through
language. Therefore, cultural knowledge and language are the means by which cognitive development
takes place. If higher mental functions depend on cultural influences then we would expect to find
different higher mental functions in different cultures by using this approach, Vygotsky has reduced
cultural bias, the assumption often made that all cultures have the same underlying traits. Gredler (1992)
found evidence of this as children in Papua New Guinea are taught a counting system that begins on the
thumb of one hand and proceeds up the arm and down to the other fingers, ending at 29. This means it's
very difficult to add and subtract large numbers and this limits mathematical calculations in that culture.
Like Paiget, Vygotsky argues that there are four stages in the formation of concepts. He identified these
stages on the basis of a study in which children were presented with wooden blocks provided with labels
consisting of nonsense symbols. Each nonsense symbol was used in a consistent way to refer to blocks
having certain characteristics, such as circular and thin. The children were given the concept formation
task of deciding on the meaning of each nonsense symbol. From this Vygotsky generated three stages:
Firstly the vague syncretic stage, where the children failed to use systematic strategies and showed little or
no understanding of the concepts. Secondly, the complex stage, where non-random strategies were used,
but these strategies were not successful in finding the main features of each concept. Thirdly, the potential
concept stage, where systematic strategies were used, but they were limited to focusing on one feature at a
time. And finally, the mature concept stage, where systematic strategies relating to more than one feature
at a time were used, and led to successful concept formation.
Vygotsky believed that children who seemed to lack certain skills when tested on their own may perform
more effectively in the social context provided by someone with the necessary knowledge. Skills shown in
the social situation and not in the isolated one, fall within the zone of proximal development.
There is a lot of research evidence for Vygotsky's approach. Approaches to teaching based on scaffolding
(the concept provided by knowledgeable people such as adults to help children to develop their cognitive
skills) have been proved as very effective. Conner, Knight and Cross (1997), studied the effects of
scaffolding on 2 year olds, who were asked to perform various problem solving and literary tasks. Mothers
and fathers were equally good at scaffolding, and the quality of scaffolding predicted the children's
performance on the various tasks during the teaching session.
Vygotsky's key contribution to educational practice was the notion that children typically learn best in a
social context in which someone who s more knowledgeable carefully guides and encourages their
learning efforts. Effective teachers will generally reduce their control over the learning process when
children are performing successfully, but will increase their control when children start making errors.
According to Vygotsky, it is important for those involved in educating children to focus on the child's zone
of proximal development. The ideal tutors are argued to be only slightly older and more advanced than the
children being taught. This is known as peer tutoring and is becoming more popular. Such tutors have
useful knowledge ad remember the limitations in their own knowledge and understanding when they were
younger. Barnier (1989), found evidence that this method of educating is effective. He looked at the
performance of 6 and 7 year olds on various spatial and perspective tasks. Those who were exposed to
brief sessions of peer tutoring with 7 and 8 year old tutors performed better than those who were not.
Vygotsky also argued that children can learn much through play, and this method of education is used
frequently in play schools and primary schools in the early years of a child's education. A key reason for
this is children at play generally make use of some aspects of their own culture e.g. they may pretend to be
a fire fighter or a doctor, or they may play with toys that are specific to their culture. This relationship
to their own culture enhances learning.
Like Paiget, Vygotsky's theory also has some limitations. Durkin (1995) pointed out, the whole
approach is based on the assumptions that "helpful tutors team up with eager tutees to yield maximum
learning outcomes." In fact, Saloon and Globerson (:1989) pointed out, there are several reasons

why this assumption is often incorrect; e.g. if there is too much status difference between the tutor and
the learner, the learner may become uninvolved in the learning process. Also, the main focus of
Vygotsky's approach to education is on the contribution made by the tutor to the understanding of
the child. In fact, it's probable that the success or otherwise of scaffolding depends crucially on the
responsiveness of the tutor to the thoughts and action of the child.
Erikson (1959) worked from a slightly different angle than bath. Paiget and Vygotsky. He focused
more on development as a whole, as opposed to child development. His starting point was the
notion that conflicts between the natural processes of maturation and the expectations of society
create various crises that the child must try to resolve. Both Piaget and Vygotsky overlooked
these conflicts. However, like Vygotsky, he focused on the role of social factors and also, the
development of the ego. Erikson decided there were 8 stages to psychosocial development. Erikson
realised that individual differences were an issue amongst the stages. This is because he believed
everyone goes through these stages in the same order, but people vary in terms of how they cope
with each stage. Each stage has possible positive and negative outcomes associated with it, and
children who have negative outcomes have to deal with their unresolved crises later in life. A
criticism of this is Erikson hasn't taken on board the possibility of people demonstrating
horizontal decalage, where they go forwards and backwards within the stages. Erikson's 8 stages
include: Firstly, infancy, which lasts between the ages of 0 and 1. Secondly, Toddler, which
lasts from 2 to 3. Next is preschool from 4 to 5 years of age. Next is childhood from 6-12 years.
Then it's adolescence from 13-19. Then early adulthood from 20-30. Then middle adulthood from 30-
60. And finally, old age, which accounts for ages 60+.
A Limitation of Erikson's theory is that he relied heavily on clinical evidence, gathered in his work as
a practising therapist. Although such evidence can indicate that a theory is on the right lines, it's
generally too anecdotal and imprecise to confirm the theory' details.
In conclusion, all theories put forward relating to cognitive development are useful in terms of
understanding the basic stages a child goes through, although there is clear confusion of what the
stages are. They are similar between all the research I have mentioned, but they are called different
things, and some psychologists believe them to occur at slightly different ages, and last for different
periods of time. Both Piaget and Vygotsky's theories have both been successfully applied to
education so they have a very useful application. Although Piaget didn't relate his theory to
education himself, there have been rewards from doing so. The fact that the research of these
psychologists can be put to such good use, in terms of being applied to education, is a huge benefit to
society as a whole. Hopefully, it will continue to be developed on, and will be of even more use in the
future.