Jean Piaget and the Theory of Cognitive Development

Image Description: Man surrounded by books and children playing. Two images of the brain with different colors and graphic and mathematic figures are in the background.

Introduction and overview of Jean Piaget

Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was a renowned 20th century psychologist and pioneer of developmental child psychology. The primary focus of his work came from asking how knowledge grows and what it looks like for knowledge to be acquired individually. A significant occurrence that gave rise to his theory was observing that young children consistently made mistakes on a test which older children did not make. This led him to the understanding that young children’s cognitive processes are inherently different from those of older children. Through continued research, he described a new theory of cognitive development.

From Piaget’s observation of children, he proposed that cognition developed through distinct stages from birth through the end of adolescence. Each stage had a sequence of thinking patterns with four key features:

1. The stages always happen in the same order.
2. No stage is ever skipped.
3. Each stage is a significant transformation of the stage before it.
4. Each later stage incorporates the earlier stages.

This staircase model of development starts with sensorimotor intelligence, continues with preoperational thinking, then concrete operational thinking, and finally formal operational thinking. The following explains each stage:

1. Sensorimotor Stage: (Birth to 2 years) is learning through sensory experiences and motor actions.  The developmental achievements are object permanence, which is the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, heard, or touched. For example, a child understands that a toy hidden under a blanket still exists, even though they can no longer see it.
2. Preoperational Stage (2 to 7 years)  is marked by the development of language and symbolic thinking. Children can use words, images, and symbols to represent objects and experiences, for example, a stick can be a sword. However, their thinking is still not logical but is egocentric which is seeing things only from their perspective. A child in this stage thinks everyone sees, thinks, and feels just as they do.
3. Concrete Operational Stage (7 to 11 years) is characterized by the development of logical thinking. Children can perform mental operations on concrete objects and events, which means they can now solve problems in a more logical and organized way. Children begin to understand that certain properties of objects remain constant, for example volume. They are capable of grouping objects based on shared characteristics such as animals into categories like mammals and reptiles. They can  arrange objects in order based on size, weight, or other characteristics (e.g., ordering sticks from shortest to longest).
4. Formal Operational Stage (11 years and older) marks the development of abstract thinking and the ability to engage in hypothetical reasoning. Adolescents can think about concepts that are not immediately present or tangible such as freedom, democracy, and equality. They can think logically about hypothetical situations and reason through problems. Adolescents also consider their own thinking processes, reflecting on their reasoning, memory, and learning strategies.

Biographical Context

Jean Piaget was a precocious child, born in Switzerland in 1896. From a young age he was known for his interest in and love of nature. At age 11, he published a scientific paper on an albino sparrow that he had observed. He had a deep interest in mollusks and published papers on them also. As a teenager he worked at the Natural History Museum. He got a college degree in zoology from University of Neuchatel in Switzerland and a PhD in natural sciences from the same school. It wasn’t until post doctoral studies that he moved to Zurich and later to Paris to study psychology. In Paris, he worked with Alfred Binet developing intelligence tests which sparked his interest in how children learn, and resulted in his theory of cognitive development. He also founded the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in Geneva (1955) to study the origins of knowledge. Influential publications by Piaget include: The language and thought of the child (1923), The origins of intelligence in children (1952), The construction of reality in the child (1954), and Biology and knowledge (1967).

Theoretical Contributions

Piaget’s theoretical contributions were significant and challenged the idea of how knowledge is gained. He presented the idea that knowledge is developed through interaction and play. This differed from the idea of a child passively receiving knowledge like an empty vessel or blank slate. He came to understand that a child’s knowledge developed over time, through the child’s interaction with the world, empirically. Most famously, Piaget described how children created schemas that shaped their perceptions, cognitions, and judgment of the world.

Comparing Piaget and Vygotsky

Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky were both influential in developmental psychology, but they had different views on how children learn. Piaget focused on individual growth of knowledge, while Vygostky focused on communal knowledge growth. Here’s a comparison of their theories:

Strengths and Limitations of Their Theories

Piaget’s theory has many strengths and has been highly influential in psychology, education, and child development. His theory provides a clear framework for how children’s knowledge grows. With this understanding, the field of education adjusted its methods, having the child take a more active role and promoting learner centered education. The framework helped in the design of age appropriate learning that built on prior knowledge. Using Piaget’s framework, the child would construct knowledge through exploration and interaction rather than passively through lectures in an instructor centered classroom. The cognitive stages set a clear guideline for what concepts can be taught effectively for different ages. Having that defined framework of what can be understood along with the constructive discovery of knowledge, student mastery became the focus and was far more valuable than regurgitation of information through rote memorization.

Piaget’s theory does have limitations. The clear age delineations that he defined in each stage refer to the neuro-typical child and what is average. This logically sets itself up for overestimation and underestimation of capabilities when considering an individual child who may fall outside the average. One way this weakness is illustrated is observing the children of pottery makers in Mexican villages: they know earlier than the concrete operational stage that reshaping clay does not change the actual amount of clay. This is something that Piaget does not account for in his theory.

Implications for Education

Piaget’s theory is relevant today and addresses specific aspects related to age and development in regards to how children think, learn, and grow. In educational practices, Piaget’s ideas about how children construct knowledge still influence modern education and curriculum design. Recognizing that certain cognitive milestones must be hit before specific concepts can be taught ensures that material is aligned and promotes developmentally appropriate learning. For example, using hands-on experiences for young children while designing more abstract concepts and working with scientific reasoning for older children.

Because Piaget’s theory helps education be more learner centered, it has continued implication for modern education, particularly in technology based practices. Designing activities or games with technology can work within the stage of development of the individual child as prior knowledge is applied to new information. This is seen in Khan Academy Kids that has divided levels with age appropriate knowledge building activities. For example, in story time activities for preoperational stage children, they are encouraged to point to and describe what they see in the book, and maybe predict an outcome. This is an example of interacting with stage appropriate material and constructing knowledge.

See case study below for applied lesson in conservation:

The H5P activity is an example of appropriate instruction during the concrete operational stage which is characterized by the ability to group or arrange similar objects based on size, weight, or other characteristics:

Conclusion

Piaget’s theory was groundbreaking. His consideration of how a child systematically thinks and learns dramatically shifted the field of education and psychology from a behaviorist focus of external reinforcements, to a recognition of an internal cognitive process that builds on itself and is actively constructed. The strength of his theory is in its support of learner centered education that is age appropriate and builds on prior knowledge. It allows a student to be active and to construct knowledge for themselves. Despite some limitations, such as rigid age delineations and lack of cultural considerations, Piaget’s contributions continue to influence educational methods and curriculum design. This constructivist learning is still widely used in modern education where students are encouraged to actively engage with their learning.

The H5P activity below is to review the cognitive stages:

References

Piaget, J. (1926). The language and thought of the child. London: Kegan Paul, Trench & Trubner.

Piaget, J. (1952). The origins of intelligence in children (M. Cook, Trans.). W. W. Norton & Co.

Piaget, J. (1954). The construction of reality in the child (M. Cook, Trans.). Basic Books.