1. Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development consists of four stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational. 2. Each stage is characterized by developing schemas, or ways of thinking, and by the use of assimilation and accommodation to adapt to new information. 3. In the concrete operational stage from ages 7-11, children begin to think logically about concrete events and understand concepts like reversibility and conservation, though they still struggle with abstract thinking.

1. JEAN PIAGET THEORY OF
COGNITIVE/MORAL DEVELOPMENT
REF- SAUL MCLEOD PUBLISHED 2009, UPDATED 2015
By
Col Mukteshwar Prasad(Retd)

2. BRIEF ABOUT PIAGET
 Jean Piaget (1896 - 1980) was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s,
where his job was to develop French versions of questions on English
intelligence tests.
 He became intrigued with the reasons children gave for their wrong
answers to the questions that required logical thinking.
 He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important differences
between the thinking of adults and children.
 Piaget (1936) described his work as genetic epistemology (i.e. the origins
of thinking).
 Genetics is the scientific study of where things come from (their
origins).
 Epistemology is concerned with the basic categories of thinking,
that is to say, the framework or structural properties of intelligence.
 What Piaget wanted to do was not to measure how well children could
count, spell or solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q.
 What he was more interested in was the way in which fundamental
concepts like the very idea of “number", “time" “quantity",
“causality", “justice" and so on emerged.

3. BRIEF ABOUT PIAGET
 Piaget (1936) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of
cognitive development.
 His contributions include
 A theory of child cognitive development,
 Detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and
 A series of simple but ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive
abilities.
 Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption in psychology was that
children are merely less competent thinkers than adults.
 Piaget showed that young children think in strikingly different ways
compared to adults.
 According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental
structure (genetically inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent
learning and knowledge is based.

4. BRIEF ABOUT PIAGET
 Piaget's Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:
 It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.
 It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does
not address learning of information or specific behaviors.
 It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative
differences, rather than a gradual increase in number and
complexity of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc.
 The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by
which the infant, and then the child, develops into an individual who
can reason and think using hypotheses.
 To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental
processes as a result of
 Biological maturation and
 Environmental experience.
 Children construct an understanding of the world around them, then
experience discrepancies between what they already know and what
they discover in their environment.

5. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY
 Schemas(building blocks of knowledge).
 Adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage to another
 Equilibrium,
 Assimilation and
 Accommodation).
 Stages of Development:
 Sensorimotor,
 Preoperational,
 Concrete operational,
 Formal operational.

6. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:
SCHEMAS
 Piaget (1952) defined a schema as 'a cohesive, repeatable action
sequence possessing component actions that are tightly
interconnected and governed by a core meaning'.
 In more simple terms Piaget called the schema the basic building block of
intelligent behavior – a way of organizing knowledge.
 Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as “units” of knowledge,
each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects, actions
and abstract (i.e. theoretical) concepts.
 Wadsworth (2004) suggests that schemata (the plural of schema) be
thought of as 'index cards' filed in the brain, each one telling an
individual how to react to incoming stimuli or information.
 When Piaget talked about the development of a person's mental processes,
he was referring to increases in the number and complexity of the
schemata that a person had learned.
 When a child's existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can
perceive around it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e. a state of
cognitive (i.e. mental) balance.

7. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:
SCHEMAS
 Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive development,
and described how they were developed or acquired.
 A schema can be defined as a set of linked mental representations
of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond to
situations.
 The assumption is that we store these mental representations and
apply them when needed.
 For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a
restaurant.
 The schema is a stored form of the pattern of behavior which includes
looking at a menu, ordering food, eating it and paying the bill.
 This is an example of a type of schema called a 'script'.
 Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from
memory and apply it to the situation.

8. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:
SCHEMAS
 The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this - especially those used by
infants.
 He described how - as a child gets older - his or her schemas become more
numerous and elaborate.
 A child developing a schema for a dog by assimilating information about the dog. The
child then sees a cat, using accommodation compares existing knowledge of a dog to
form a schema of a cat.
 Piaget believed that newborn babies have a small number of innate schemas - even
before they have had much opportunity to experience the world.
 These neonatal schemas are the cognitive structures underlying innate
reflexes.
 These reflexes are genetically programmed into us.
 For example, babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching
the baby's lips.
 A baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person's finger.
 Piaget therefore assumed that the baby has a 'sucking schema‘.

9. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:
SCHEMAS
 Similarly the grasping reflex which is elicited when something touches the
palm of a baby's hand, or the rooting reflex, in which a baby will turn its head
towards something which touches its cheek, were assumed to result
operations: for example shaking a rattle would be the combination of two
schemas, grasping and shaking.

10. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:
ADAPTATION PROCESS
 Jean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual growth as
a process of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through:
 Assimilation– Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new
object or situation.
 Accommodation– This happens when the existing schema (knowledge)
does not work, and needs to be changed to deal with a new object or
situation.
 Equilibration– This is the force which moves development along.
 Piaget believed that cognitive development did not progress at a
steady rate, but rather in leaps and bounds.
 Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most
new information through assimilation.
 However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs when new
information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).

12. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:
ADAPTATION PROCESS
 Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do
not like to be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by
mastering the new challenge (Accommodation).
 Once the new information is acquired the process of assimilation
with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to
make an adjustment to it.
 Example of Assimilation
 A 2 year old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long
frizzy hair on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown,
clown” (Siegler et al., 2003).
 Example of Accommodation
 In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was
not a clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t
wearing a funny costume and wasn’t doing silly things to make people laugh.
 With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown”
and make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown”.

13. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
 A child's cognitive development is about a child developing or constructing a
mental model of the world.
 Jean Piaget was interested both
 In how children learnt and
 In how they thought.
 Piaget studied children from infancy to adolescence, and carried out many of
his own investigations using his three children and the children of his friends.
 He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children who were
able to understand questions and hold conversations.
 Piaget believed that children think differently than adults, and stated they
go through 4 universal stages of cognitive development.
 Development is therefore biologically based and changes as the
child matures. Cognition therefore develops in all children in the
same sequence of stages.

14. THREE BASIC COMPONENTS TO PIAGET'S COGNITIVE THEORY:
STAGES OF DEVELOPMENT
 Each child goes through the stages in the same order, and no stage can be
missed out - although some individuals may never attain the later stages.
 There are individual differences in the rate at which children progress through stages.
 Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age -
although descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at
which the average child would reach each stage.
 Piaget (1952) believed that these stages are universal - i.e. that the same
sequence of development occurs in children all over the world, whatever their
culture.

15. A LOOK AT PIAGET'S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT :
THE SENSORIMOTOR STAGE(0 - 2 YRS.)
 During this stage, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through
sensory experiences and manipulating objects.
 It was his observations of his daughter and nephew that heavily
influenced his conception of this stage.
 At this point in development, a child's intelligence consists of their
basic motor and sensory explorations of the world.
 Piaget believed that developing object permanence or object constancy,
the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot
be seen, was an important element at this point of development.
 By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they
have an existence of their own outside of individual perception, children
are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects.

16. A LOOK AT PIAGET'S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT :
THE PREOPERATIONAL STAGE(2-7 YRS.)
 During this stage, children begin to engage in symbolic play and learn
to manipulate symbols. However they do not yet understand concrete
logic cannot mentally manipulate information, and are unable to
take the point of view of other people, which he termed
egocentrism.,i.e. still struggle with logic and taking the point of view of
other people.
 Characteristics of the Preoperational Stage
 Language development is one of the hallmarks of this period.
 Children also become increasingly adept at using symbols, as
evidenced by the increase in playing and pretending.
 For example, a child is able to use an object to represent something
else, such as pretending a broom is a horse.
 Role playing also becomes important
 Children often play the roles of "mommy," "daddy," "doctor" and
many other characters.
 Often struggle with understanding the ideal of constancy.
 For example, a lump of clay, divide it into two equal pieces, and then
give a child the option of choosing two pieces of clay to play with.
 One piece rolled into a compact ball while the other is smashed into
a flat pancake shape.
 Since the flat shape looks larger, child will likely choose that piece

17. THE PREOPERATIONAL STAGE(2-7 YRS.)
 Egocentrism
 Children are asked to choose a picture after display of three dimensional
mountain scene called “Three Dimensional Task”
 Most children are able to do this with little difficulty.
 Next, children are asked to select a picture showing what someone else
would have observed when looking at the mountain from a different
viewpoint.
 Invariably, children almost always choose the scene showing their own
view of the mountain scene.
 According to Piaget, children experience this difficulty because
they are unable to take on another person's perspective.
 Conservation
 In one conservation experiment, equal amounts of liquid are poured into
two identical containers and then poured in two different shaped cup, such
as a tall and thin cup or a short and wide cup.
 Children are then asked which cup holds the most liquid and children
almost always choose the cup that appears fuller.
 Piaget conducted a number of similar experiments on conservation of
number, length, mass, weight, volume, and quantity.
 He found that few children showed any understanding of
conservation prior to the age of five.

18. THE PREOPERATIONAL STAGE(2-7 YRS.)
 Piaget's Thoughts on the Preoperational Stage
 Much of Piaget's focus at this stage of development focused on what
children could not yet do.
 The concepts of egocentrism and conservation are both centered
on abilities that children have not yet developed
 They lack the understanding that things look different to other people
and that objects can change in appearance while still maintaining the
same properties.
 However, not everyone agrees with Piaget's assessment of children's
abilities.
 Researcher Martin Hughes argued that the reason that children failed
at the three mountains task was simply because they did not
understand it.
 In an experiment that involved utilizing dolls, Hughes demonstrated
that children as young as age four were able to understand situations
from multiple points of view, suggesting that children become less
egocentric at and earlier age than Piaget believed.

19. A LOOK AT PIAGET'S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT : THE
CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE(7-11YRS.)
 During this time, children gain a better understanding
of mental operations.
 Children begin thinking logically about concrete events,
but have difficulty understanding abstract or
hypothetical concepts.
 At this point, children also become less egocentric
and begin to think about how other people might
think and feel.
 Kids in the concrete operational stage also begin to
understand that their thoughts are unique to them
and that not everyone else necessarily shares their
thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

20. THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE(7-11YRS.)
 Characteristics of the Concrete Operational Stage
 Logic
 Piaget determined that children in the concrete operational stage were fairly
good at the use of inductive logic (inductive reasoning).
 Inductive logic involves going from a specific experience to a general
principle.
 E.g. noticing that every time you are around a cat, you have an itchy eyes,
a runny nose, and a swollen throat.
 You might then reason from that experience that you are allergic to cats.
 On the other hand, children at this age have difficulty using deductive
logic, which involves using a general principle to determine the
outcome of a specific event.
 For example, a child might learn that A=B, and B=C, but might still
struggle to understand that A=C.
 Reversibility
 An understanding of reversibility, or awareness that actions can be
reversed.
 An example of this is being able to reverse the order of relationships
between mental categories. For example, a child might be able to recognize
that his or her dog is a Labrador, that a Labrador is a dog, and that a dog is
an animal.

21. THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE(7-11YRS.)
 Other Key Characteristics
 Another key development at this stage is the
understanding that when something changes in shape or
appearance it is still the same, a concept known as
conservation.
 The concrete operational stage is also marked by the
disappearance of egocentrism.

22. THE CONCRETE OPERATIONAL STAGE(7-11YRS.)
 Observations About the Concrete Operational Stage
 Rathus (2008) suggests that one of the key characteristics of the
concrete-operational stage is the ability to focus on many parts of a
problem known as "decentration."
 They are able to concentrate on many different aspects of a situation at
the same time, which is plays a critical role in the understanding of
conservation.
 Salkind (2004) also suggests that this stage of cognitive development
also serves as an important transition between the preoperational
and formal operational stages.
 Reversibility is an important step toward more advanced thinking,
although at this stage it only applies to concrete situations.
 While kids at earlier stages of development are egocentric, those in the
concrete operational stage become more sociocentric i.e. they are able
to understand that other people have their own thoughts.
 Kids at this point are aware that other people have unique perspectives,
but they might not yet be able to guess exactly how or what that other
person is experiencing.
 This growing ability to mentally manipulate information and think
about the thoughts of others will play a critical role in the formal
operational stage of development, when logic and abstract thought
become critical.

23. A LOOK AT PIAGET'S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT :
THE FORMAL OPERATIONAL STAGE(11+ YRS.)
 The final stage of Piaget's theory involves an increase in
logic, the ability to use deductive reasoning, and an
understanding of abstract ideas.
 At this point, people become capable of seeing multiple
potential solutions to problems and think more
scientifically about the world around them.

24. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
 Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policy and
teaching practice.
 For example, a review of primary education by the UK government in 1966 was based
strongly on Piaget’s theory. The result of this review led to the publication of
the Plowden report (1967).
 Discovery learning – the idea that children learn best through doing and
actively exploring - was seen as central to the transformation of the primary
school curriculum.
 'The report's recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the
curriculum, the centrality of play in children's learning, the use of the
environment, learning by discovery and the importance of the
evaluation of children's progress - teachers should 'not assume that
only what is measurable is valuable.‘
 . According to Piaget's theory children should not be taught certain concepts
until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development.
 According to Piaget (1958), assimilation and accommodation require an
active learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills cannot
be taught, they must be discovered.

25. EDUCATIONAL IMPLICATIONS
 Within the classroom learning should be student centred a accomplished
through active discovery learning.
 The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than direct tuition.
 Therefore, teachers should encourage the following within the classroom:
 o Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it.
 o Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing
"truths".
 o Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can
learn from each other).
 o Devising situations that present useful problems, and create
disequilibrium in the child.
 o Evaluate the level of the child's development, so suitable tasks can be
set.

26. FINAL THOUGHT
 It is important to note that Piaget did not view children's
intellectual development as a quantitative process; that is, kids
do not just add more information and knowledge to their existing
knowledge as they get older.
 Instead, Piaget suggested that there is a qualitative change in how
children think as they gradually process through these four stages.
 A child at age 7 doesn't just have more information about the world than
he did at age 2; there is a fundamental change in how he thinks about the
world.
 One of the most important elements to remember of Piaget's
theory is that it takes the view that the creation of knowledge
and intelligence is an inherently active process.
 "I find myself opposed to the view of knowledge as a passive copy
of reality," Piaget explained. " I believe that knowing an object
means acting upon it, constructing systems of transformations that
can be carried out on or with this object. Knowing reality means
constructing systems of transformations that correspond, more or
less adequately, to reality."

27. REFERENCES
 Fancher, R. E. (1996). Pioneers of Psychology, 3rd edition. New York: Norton.
 Santrock, John W. (2008). A topical approach to life-span development (4
ed.). New York City: McGraw-Hill.
 Piaget, J. (1970). Genetic Epistemology. New York: Norton.
 Piaget, J. (1977). Gruber, H.E.; Voneche, J.J. eds. The essential Piaget. New
York: Basic Books.
 Piaget, J. (1983). Piaget's theory. In P. Mussen (ed). Handbook of Child
Psychology. 4th edition. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley.