Learning and Teaching: Piaget's Developmental Theory - Research Paper Example

ASSIGNMENT 2 COVER SHEET ASSIGNMENT 2 MARKING RUBRIC Introduction The purpose of this study was to observe two individuals on a task of sorting small items. The results of this observation were analysed in the light of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development, so as to explore the practical application of the theory. This paper presents an overview of Piaget’s theory and reports on the observational study, followed by an interpretation and analysis of the data. Piaget’s theory of cognitive development Jean Piaget was an educational psychologist whose work was extremely important in the 1960s (Gardner, 2008). Through many hours of observing babies and children he developed a theory of cognitive development, which posits that a child’s mental ability does not does not develop seamlessly but rather goes through four distinct and predictable stages (Weiten, 1989; Atherton, 2010). The exact ages differ from child to child, but the basic stages are: Sensorimotor (birth to age 2) Pre-operational (age 2 to 7) Concrete operations (age 7 to 11) Formal operations (age 11 upwards) In the sensorimotor stage, children develop their motor ability in response to sensory input. At first a child relates to objects purely as they appear in the real world, but by the end of this stage they start to form simple symbolic (imaginative) representations of objects. In the pre-operational stage they continue to develop symbolic thinking but are unable to master certain aspects, such as volume or mass. In the concrete operations period, children still think about objects or events in a concrete and literal way, but their mental operations become more advanced and they start to understand the concepts of liquid, mass, number, volume, area and length (Weiten, 1989; Satterly, 1987). In the formal operations stage, which includes older children and adults (who are not cognitively impaired), people develop the ability to think abstractly rather than relying on concrete mental representations. They are able to consider philosophical issues and become more systematic in their thinking (Weiten, 1989; Satterly, 1987; Atherton, 2010). Piaget said there are two main ways in which people increase their knowledge. The first is assimilation, in which new experiences are interpreted according to mental structures that already exist; the existing structures are not changed by the new information. The second type of learning is accommodation, where existing mental structures are changed by new input—much like the development of a new theory (Weiten, 1989; Satterly, 1987; Atherton, 2010). . Method The two individuals who were asked to participate in this study were a girl aged eight and a woman aged sixty. Both participants were known to the researcher and were selected for their accessibility and willingness to participate. For the purposes of this report, the child is called Lucy and the older woman is called Paula. Prior to the research sessions, the researcher collected twenty small objects and placed these together in a plastic bowl. The collection included: 6 sea shells, 3 broken and 3 intact 3 screw-top bottle tops (1 white, 1 green, 1 red) 2 feathers, 1 grey and 1 speckled 3 buttons (1 bronze, 1 red, and 1 blue) 1 screw 1 nail 2 stones (1 unpolished quartz, 1 brown) 2 small plastic animals (1 pig and 1 cow) Each participant was asked to sort these items into groups. The child was instructed as follows: ‘Can you put these things into piles for me? All the things that are the same as each other must go into one pile. Then you can make another pile for other things that are the same. Make as many piles as you want.’ The adult was instructed as follows: ‘Please sort these items into groups according to their characteristics. Put items that are similar into one group, and make another group or groups for items that also resemble each other. Make as many groups as you want.” Each participant was observed working alone at a table of suitable height; they were given no time limits. The researcher made notes while observing them. Afterwards they were asked to explain why they sorted the items as they did, and their responses were noted. (‘Can you tell me why you put these things together? How are they the same?’) Then the researcher pooled the items again, and asked the participant to repeat the task but to sort the items in a different way. The child was asked to place them once more into piles of things that were the same as each other, but to ‘make it different from last time’, while the adult was given the request in adult language. Neither participant seemed to have any trouble in understanding the tasks. They did not seem to seek the researcher’s approval while working or on completion, which may have meant that they felt comfortable with the researcher because they knew her socially. Both participants made passing references, while working, to other experiences or similar objects they had encountered. Results Table 1 below shows a summary of the observations, including participants’ comments while working. Lucy (child participant) first sorted the items into two groups based on whether they were ‘pretty’ or ‘things for boys’; she later sorted them into three groups based on whether she ‘loved’ an item, ‘liked’ it, or again felt that it was ‘for boys’. The adult participant, Paula, initially distinguished between ‘man-made’ and ‘natural’ to sort the items into two groups; her second trial also produced only two groups, based on whether she perceived an item as ‘symmetrical’ or not. Participant Trial 1 Rationale Comments Trial 2 Rationale Comments Lucy (girl aged 8) Group 1 3 intact shells 1 broken shell (pink) 1 speckled feather 3 buttons 1 stone (quartz) Group 2 2 broken shells 3 bottle-tops 1 grey feather 1 screw 1 nail 1 stone 2 plastic animals Pretty things Things for boys ‘This is pretty’ [shell] ‘This one’s broken’ [shell] ‘I’ve got a dress with buttons like this’ [blue button] ‘My brother has a farmyard set’ [ plastic cow] ‘This is a big bird!’ [grey feather] Group 1 1 intact shell (pearl) 1 broken shell (pink) 1 button (blue) 1 plastic pig Group 2 2 intact shells 2 feathers 2 buttons 1 stone (quartz) Group 3 2 broken shells 3 bottle-tops 1 stone (brown) 1 screw 1 nail 1 plastic cow Things I love Things I like Things for boys ‘I love pink!’ [pink plastic pig] ‘These shells are pretty’ [intact shells] ‘I like birds’ [2 feathers] ‘Boys… boys… boys…’ [said dismissively while pushing items away] Paula (woman aged 60) Group 1 3 bottle-tops 3 buttons 1 screw 1 nail 2 plastic animals Group 2 6 shells 2 feathers 2 stones Man-made Natural ‘I was going to do functional versus decorative, but where would the buttons go?’ ‘Shells, too. They can be both functional or decorative, depending on who’s wearing them!’ [laughs] Group 1 3 bottle-tops 3 buttons 1 screw 1 nail 1 intact shell 1 speckled feather Group 2 2 intact shells 3 broken shells 1 grey feather 2 stones 2 plastic animals Symmetrical Asymmetrical ‘I’m looking at it from side to side, not from top to bottom’ [bottle-tops] ‘A perfect shell!’ ‘Their feet and heads are all doing different things’ [plastic animals] Table 1: Results of a sorting task for a child and an adult Discussion In this section the results of the observational study are related to Piaget’s theory. In terms of the theory, Lucy falls in the concrete operations stage, where children have not yet developed the ability for abstract thought but rely on manipulating tangible objects or their mental representations (Weiten, 1989; Satterly, 1987; Atherton, 2010). Lucy’s use of the category ‘pretty’ is interesting because ‘pretty’ is not a tangible feature but involves subjective judgement. Lucy’s emotional response to each item seems to have guided her choices, rather than there being any objective similarity between items. It is also interesting that she did not sort into ‘things for girls’ versus ‘things for boys’, or ‘pretty’ versus ‘ugly’, but rather combined these two overall categories. In terms of Piaget’s theory, such thinking is normal in a child of Lucy’s age because she cannot yet form abstract distinctions, and the hierarchies between categories are unclear to her (Weiten, 1989; Atherton, 2010). When asked to sort the items again in a new way, Lucy’s emotional preferences were even more obvious in her choice of categories. Once again there was some blurring of categories in that her third group was not ‘things I don’t like’, as might be expected, but again she called the group ‘things for boys’. The dismissive way in which she pushed those items aside showed that she was disinterested in things she did not perceive of as being relevant to her as a girl. Piaget’s theory does not deal directly with the development of gender identity, but one may speculate that a child of Lucy’s age is quite engaged with this issue. The physical nature of gender differences may make this an important distinction for children in the stage of concrete operations. Paula’s thinking is far more sophisticated and is appropriate for someone in the formal operations stage (Weiten, 1989; Satterly, 1987; Atherton, 2010). She initially sorts by ‘man-made’ versus ‘natural’, thus drawing on her background knowledge about each item and its origins, rather than grouping them according to tangible features like colour or texture. She also does not group items according to her personal preference or feelings about them but rather according to their objective characteristics. Again this type of thinking is appropriate in an adult, whereas a child tends to think in an egocentric way, as shown by Lucy using her own emotional responses to classify the objects (Weiten, 1989; Atherton, 2010; Epanchin & Paul, 1987). During the first trial, Paula mentions an alternative grouping which she had thought about using, namely ‘functional’ versus ‘decorative’, which would also have required her to use background knowledge and abstract reasoning. These are all appropriate choices for the formal operations stage (Weiten, 1989; Satterly, 1987; Atherton, 2010). In her second trial, Paula made use of a somewhat more concrete feature, namely symmetry/asymmetry. This characteristic is directly observable, but background knowledge is still necessary, as is an understanding of an abstract (geometrical) idea. She indicated a thorough grasp of the nature of symmetry when she mentioned that she was looking at each item ‘from side to side, not from top to bottom.’ She was able not only to manipulate or rotate the items in her mind but was also able to articulate linguistically what she was doing (Atherton, 2010). Both Lucy and Paula demonstrated Piaget’s concepts of assimilation and accommodation (Weiten, 1989; Satterly, 1987; Atherton, 2010). In sorting the items according to categories which they themselves decided on, they showed how assimilation works. They took in data from the external world, namely the shells, bottle-tops, stones and so on which were shown to them, and they sifted this information through their existing mental structures to produce certain groupings. They also demonstrated the principle of accommodation when they changed their methods of sorting. The data which they perceived about the items was the same as before, but they were asked to change their way of thinking about those items. The fact that their mental structures were flexible enough to do so shows a specific type of accommodation, which Piaget termed ‘decentration’ (Atherton, 2010). However, in Lucy’s case she did not fully change her way of classifying things from Trial 1 to Trial 2, as shown by her use of the category ‘things for boys’ in both trials. Limitations of the study This study is limited by the fact that it only had two participants, both of whom are personal acquaintances of the researcher, and the study was conducted informally with only one observer present. It is possible that the personal relationship between the researcher and participants may have influenced their responses and choices on the sorting task. In addition, only two of Piaget’s four developmental stages were represented in this study. Due to these limitations, all analysis and interpretation of the results must be considered exploratory and speculative, and cannot be generalised to other groups or individuals. Implications for learning and teaching The implications of this study rest on Piaget’s theory itself, rather than deriving from any conclusions about Lucy and Paula. Educational psychologists have long incorporated Piaget’s ideas into their work, for example by making sure that children in the concrete operations stage are given suitable learning tools (Satterly, 1987; Atherton, 2010). Examples include a mathematics class that provides counting blocks or an abacus (counting frame). Children in this stage cannot be expected to appreciate highly abstract ideas, so lessons should focus on the manipulation of concrete items or ideas. In the next stage, formal operations, it is appropriate to start moving the learners into more abstract ways of thinking and to provide material that is suited to that mode (Satterly, 1987; Atherton, 2010). References Atherton, J.S. (2010) Learning and Teaching; Piaget's developmental theory [On-line] UK: Available: http://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm Accessed: 26 October 2010 Epanchin, B.C. & Paul, J.L (1987) Emotional Problems of Childhood and Adolescence. Columbus: Merrill Publishing Co. Gardner, H (2008). ‘Wrestling with Jean Piaget, my Paragon’ on Edge World Question Center: What have you changed your mind about? http://www.edge.org/q2008/q08_1.html#gardner accessed 25 October 2010 Satterly, D. (1987) ‘Piaget and Education’ in R L Gregory (ed.) The Oxford Companion to the Mind. Oxford, Oxford University Press Weiten, W. (1989). Psychology: Themes and Variations. California: Brooks/Cole. Appendix A Consent forms Read More