Content deleted Content added
InedibleHulk (talk | contribs) m →Criticism: There's already a Criticism section. Some today might call this Problematicism. Simply put, though, some think these methods have "problems". |
Ira Leviton (talk | contribs) m Fixed a reference. Please see Category:CS1 errors: dates. |
||
| (36 intermediate revisions by 19 users not shown) | |||
Line 28:
| s2cid=144657103
}}
</ref> His theory of child development
Piaget created the International Center for Genetic Epistemology in [[Geneva]] in 1955 while on the faculty of the [[University of Geneva]], and directed the center until his death in 1980.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html|title=About Piaget|publisher=Jean Piaget Society|access-date=17 October 2016|archive-date=24 August 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190824192513/http://www.piaget.org/aboutPiaget.html}}</ref> The number of collaborations that its founding made possible, and their impact, ultimately led to the Center being referred to in the scholarly literature as "Piaget's factory".<ref name="Burman-HoP2012">{{cite journal|last=Burman|first=J. T.|title=Jean Piaget: Images of a life and his factory|journal=History of Psychology|year=2012|volume=15|issue=3|pages=283–288|doi=10.1037/a0025930|pmid=23397918|issn=1093-4510}}</ref>
Line 43:
Piaget moved from Switzerland to Paris after his graduation and he taught at the Grange-Aux-Belles Street School for Boys. The school was run by [[Alfred Binet]], the developer of the Binet-Simon test (later revised by Lewis Terman to become the [[Stanford–Binet Intelligence Scales]]). Piaget assisted in the marking of Binet's intelligence tests. It was while he was helping to mark some of these tests that Piaget noticed that young children consistently gave wrong answers to certain questions.<ref>{{Citation |last=Piaget |first=Jean |title=Jean Piaget. |date=1952 |url=http://content.apa.org/books/11154-011 |work=A History of Psychology in Autobiography, Vol IV. |pages=237–256 |editor-last=Boring |editor-first=Edwin G. |place=Worcester |publisher=Clark University Press |language=en |doi=10.1037/11154-011 |access-date=2022-07-07 |editor2-last=Werner |editor2-first=Heinz |editor3-last=Langfeld |editor3-first=Herbert S. |editor4-last=Yerkes |editor4-first=Robert M.}}</ref> Piaget did not focus so much on the fact of the children's answers being wrong, but that young children consistently made types of mistakes that older children and adults managed to avoid. This led him to the theory that young children's cognitive processes are inherently different from those of adults. Ultimately, he was to propose a global theory of cognitive developmental stages in which individuals exhibit certain common patterns of cognition in each period of development.
In 1921, Piaget returned to Switzerland as director of the [[Rousseau Institute]] in [[Geneva]]. At this time, the institute was directed by [[Édouard Claparède]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~hgsebio/presentations/A%20Brief%20Biography%20of%20Jean%20Piaget.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901201210/http://gseacademic.harvard.edu/~hgsebio/presentations/A%20Brief%20Biography%20of%20Jean%20Piaget.pdf |archive-date=2006-09-01 |url-status=live|title=A Brief Biography of Jean Piaget|author=Mayer, Susan |date=21 October 2005|website=gseacademic.harvard.edu}}</ref> Piaget was familiar with many of Claparède's ideas
In 1923, he married Valentine Châtenay (7 January 1899 – 3 July 1983);<ref>[http://www.fondationjeanpiaget.ch/fjp/site/biographie/index_biographie.php Fondation Jean Piaget – Biographie]. Fondationjeanpiaget.ch. Retrieved on 26 February 2018.</ref> the couple had three children, whom Piaget studied from infancy. From 1925 to 1929, Piaget worked as a professor of psychology, sociology, and the philosophy of science at
Line 60:
# the elaboration of the logical model of intellectual development,
# the study of figurative thought.
The resulting theoretical frameworks are sufficiently different from each other that they have been characterized as representing different "Piagets". More recently, Jeremy Burman responded to Beilin and called for the addition of a phase before his turn to psychology: "the
===Piaget's career before becoming a psychologist===
Before Piaget became a psychologist, he trained in [[natural history]] and [[philosophy]]. He received a doctorate in 1918 from the [[University of Neuchâtel]]. He then undertook post-doctoral training in Zürich (1918–1919), and Paris (1919–1921). He was hired by [[Théodore Simon]] to standardize [[psychometrics|psychometric measures]] for use with French children in 1919.<ref>{{Cite journal |title = The Early Evolution of Jean Piaget's Clinical Method|last = Mayer|first = Susan|date = 2005|journal = History of Psychology|volume = 8|issue = 4|pages = 362–82|doi = 10.1037/1093-4510.8.4.362|url=https://www.researchgate.net/publication/6646116|pmid = 17152748}}</ref> The theorist we recognize today only emerged when he moved to Geneva, to work for [[Édouard Claparède]] as director of research at the [[Rousseau Institute]], in 1922.
Line 71:
===Biological model of intellectual development===
In this stage, Piaget believed that the process of thinking and intellectual development could be regarded as an extension of the biological process of the (adaptation) of the species, which has also two ongoing processes: assimilation and accommodation. There is ''assimilation'' when a child responds to a new event in a way that is consistent with an existing [[schema (psychology)|schema]].
He argued infants were engaging in the act of assimilation when they sucked on everything in their reach. He claimed infants transform all objects into an object to be sucked. The children were assimilating the objects to conform to their own mental structures. Piaget then made the assumption that whenever one transforms the world to meet individual needs or conceptions, one is, in a way, assimilating it. Piaget also observed his children not only assimilating objects to fit their needs, but also modifying some of their mental structures to meet the demands of the environment. This is the second division of adaptation known as accommodation. To start, the infants only engaged in primarily reflex actions such as sucking, but not long after, they would pick up objects and put them in their mouths. When they do this, they modify their reflex response to accommodate the external objects into reflex actions. Because the two are often in conflict, they provide the impetus for intellectual
To test his theory, Piaget observed the [[habit]]s in his own children.
Line 92:
There are a total of four phases in Piaget's research program that included books on certain topics of developmental psychology. In particular, during one period of research, he described himself studying his own three children, and carefully observing and interpreting their cognitive development.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Beilin Harry |title=Piaget's Enduring Contribution to Developmental Psychology|year=1992|journal=Developmental Psychology|volume=28|issue=2|pages=191–204|doi=10.1037/0012-1649.28.2.191}}</ref> In one of his last books, ''Equilibration of Cognitive Structures: The Central Problem of Intellectual Development'', he intends to explain knowledge development as a process of equilibration using two main concepts in his theory, assimilation and accommodation, as belonging not only to biological interactions but also to cognitive ones.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Kurt |first=Dr Serhat |date=2022-11-17 |title=Jean Piaget: Biography, Theory and Cognitive Development |url=https://educationlibrary.org/jean-piaget-biography-theory-and-cognitive-development/ |access-date=2022-11-30 |website=Education Library |language=en-US}}</ref>
He stated that children are born with limited capabilities and his cognition ability develops over age<ref>{{Cite web |last=Cherry |first=Kendra |date=1 May 2024 |title=Piaget's 4 Stages of Cognitive Development Explained. |url=http://www.verywellmind.com |access-date=3 July 2024 |website=www.verywellmind.com}}</ref>.
Piaget believed answers for the epistemological questions at his time could be answered, or better proposed, if one looked to the genetic aspect of it, hence his experimentations with children and adolescents. As he says in the introduction of his book ''Genetic Epistemology'': "What the genetic epistemology proposes is discovering the roots of the different varieties of knowledge, since its elementary forms, following to the next levels, including also the scientific knowledge."
Line 98 ⟶ 100:
The four development stages are described in Piaget's theory as:
{{Ordered list
{{Ordered list |list_style_type=upper-roman
|Simple reflexes:
|First habits and primary circular reactions:
|Secondary circular reactions:
▲::From one month to four months old. During this time infants learn to coordinate sensation and two types of schema (habit and circular reactions). A primary circular reaction is when the infant tries to reproduce an event that happened by accident (ex.: sucking thumb).
|Coordination of secondary circular reactions:
|Tertiary circular reactions, novelty, and curiosity:
▲::From four to eight months old. At this time they become aware of things beyond their own body; they are more object-oriented. At this time they might accidentally shake a rattle and continue to do it for sake of satisfaction.
}}
▲::From eight months to twelve months old. During this stage they can do things intentionally. They can now combine and recombine schemata and try to reach a goal (ex.: use a stick to reach something). They also begin to understand [[object permanence]] in the later months and early into the next stage. That is, they understand that objects continue to exist even when they can't see them.
▲::From twelve months old to eighteen months old. During this stage infants explore new possibilities of objects; they try different things to get different results.
▲:VI. Internalization of schemata.
<p>Some followers of Piaget's studies of infancy, such as [[Kenneth Kaye]]<ref name="K. Kaye, 1982">Kaye, K. (1982) ''The Mental and Social Life of Babies''. U. Chicago Press.</ref> argue that his contribution was as an observer of countless phenomena not previously described, but that he didn't offer explanation of the processes in real time that cause those developments, beyond analogizing them to broad concepts about biological adaptation generally. Kaye's "apprenticeship theory" of cognitive and social development refuted Piaget's assumption that mind developed endogenously in infants until the capacity for symbolic reasoning allowed them to learn language.</p>
<p>The preoperational stage is sparse and logically inadequate in regard to mental operations. The child is able to form stable concepts as well as magical beliefs, but not perform operations, which are mental tasks, rather than physical. Thinking in this stage is still egocentric, meaning the child has difficulty seeing the viewpoint of others. The preoperational stage is split into two substages: the symbolic function substage, and the intuitive thought substage. The symbolic function substage is when children are able to understand, represent, remember, and picture objects in their mind without having the object in front of them. The intuitive thought substage is when children tend to propose the questions of "why?" and "how come?" This stage is when children want the knowledge of knowing everything.<ref name="Santrock, John W. 2004"/></p>
<p>The Preoperational Stage is divided into two substages:</p>
{{Ordered list |list_style_type=upper-roman
}}
▲::At between about the ages of four and seven, children tend to become very curious and ask many questions, beginning the use of primitive reasoning. There is an emergence in the interest of reasoning and wanting to know why things are the way they are. Piaget called it the "intuitive substage" because children realize they have a vast amount of knowledge, but they are unaware of how they acquired it. Centration, conservation, irreversibility, class inclusion, and transitive inference are all characteristics of preoperative thought.<ref name="Santrock, John W. 2004"/>
}}
===Psychology of functions and correspondences===
Line 198 ⟶ 199:
After conducting many studies, Piaget found significant differences in the way adults and children reason. He could not find the path of logic reasoning and the unspoken thoughts children had, which would allow him to study a child's intellectual development over time (Mayer, 2005). In his third book, ''The Child's Conception of the World'', Piaget recognized the difficulties of his prior techniques and the importance of psychiatric clinical examination. The researcher believed that the way clinical examinations were conducted influenced how a child's inner realities surfaced. Children would likely respond according to the way the research is conducted, the questions asked, or the familiarity they have with the environment. The clinical examination conducted for his third book provides a thorough investigation into a child's thinking process. An example of a question used to research such process was: "Can you see a thought?" (Mayer, 2005, p. 372).
===Piaget replaces psychometric tests with the clinical method approach===
Piaget recognized that psychometric tests had its limitations, as children were not able to provide the researcher with their deepest thoughts and inner intellect. It was also difficult to know if the results of child examination reflected what children believed or if it is just a pretend situation. For example, it is very difficult to know with certainty if a child who has a conversation with a toy believes the toy is alive or if the child is just pretending. Soon after drawing conclusions about psychometric studies, Piaget started developing the clinical method of examination. The clinical method included questioning a child and carefully examining their responses – in order to observe how the child reasoned according to the questions asked – and then examining the child's perception of the world through their responses. Piaget recognized the difficulties of interviewing a child and the importance of recognizing the difference between "liberated" versus "spontaneous" responses (Mayer, 2005, p. 372).
Piaget wanted to research in environments that would allow children to connect with some existing aspects of the world. The idea was to change the approach described in his book ''The Child's Conception of the World'' and move away from the vague questioning interviews. This new approach was described in his book ''The Child's Conception of Physical Causality'', where children were presented with dilemmas and had to think of possible solutions on their own. Later, after carefully analyzing previous methods, Piaget developed a combination of naturalistic observation with clinical interviewing in his book ''Judgment and Reasoning in the Child'', where a child's intellect was tested with questions and close monitoring. Piaget was convinced he had found a way to analyze and access a child's thoughts about the world in a very effective way (Mayer, 2005). Piaget's research provided a combination of theoretical and practical research methods and it has offered a crucial contribution to the field of developmental psychology (Beilin, 1992). "Piaget is often criticized because his method of investigation, though somewhat modified in recent years, is still largely clinical". He observes a child's surroundings and behavior. He then comes up with a hypothesis testing it and focusing on both the surroundings and behavior after changing a little of the surrounding.<ref>Phillips, John L. (1969). ''The Origin of Intellect: Piaget's Theory''. San Francisco: W. H. Freeman. {{ISBN|0-7167-0579-6}}</ref>
Judged by today's standards of psychological research, Piaget's research methods would be considered problematic. Indeed, one modern reviewer has commented that "many of Piaget's pioneering investigations would probably be rejected from most modern journals on methodological grounds of sample size, non-standard measurement, and lack of inter-rater reliability".<ref name="Klahr">{{cite book |last1=Klahr |first1=D. |title=Developmental psychology: revisiting the classic studies |chapter=Revisiting Piaget: A perspective from studies of children's problem-solving abilities |editor-last=Slater |editor-first=A.M. |editor2-last=Quinn |editor2-first=P.C. |location=London |publisher=SAGE |year=2012 |isbn=978-0-85702-757-3}}</ref>▼
Piaget's research relied on very small [[Sample (statistics)|samples]] that were not [[selection bias|randomly selected]]. His book ''The Origins of Intelligence in Children'' was based on the study of just three children: his own.<ref name="Hopkins 2011">{{cite journal |title=The Enduring Influence of Jean Piaget |journal=APS Observer |year=2011 |last=Hopkins |first=J.R. |volume=24 |issue=10}}</ref> This means that it is difficult to generalize Piaget's findings to the broader population. Piaget interacted closely with his research subjects and did not follow a set script, meaning that experimental conditions may not have been exactly the same from participant to participant, introducing issues of consistency. As he worked in the era before widespread use of voice recording equipment, his data collection method was simply to make handwritten notes in the field, which he would analyse himself.<ref name="Klahr" /> This differs from the modern practice of using multiple [[Coding (social sciences)|coders]] to ensure [[test validity]]. Furthermore, critics such as [[Linda Siegel]] have argued that Piaget's experiments did not adequately control for social context and the child's understanding (or lack of understanding) of the language used in the test task, leading to mistaken conclusions about children's lack of reasoning skills.<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1037/h0078835|title=Amazing new discovery: Piaget was wrong!|journal=Canadian Psychology|volume=34|issue=3|pages=239–245|year=1993|last1=Siegel|first1=Linda S}}</ref>▼
These methodological issues mean that when scientists have tried to replicate Piaget's experiments, they have found that small changes to Piaget's procedures lead to different results. For example, in Piaget's tests of object-permanence and conservation of number, the ages at which children pass the tests varies greatly based on small variations in the test procedure, challenging Piaget's theoretical interpretations of his test results.<ref name="Klahr" /><ref name="Dehaene 2020">{{cite book | last = Dehaene | first = Stanislas | title = How we learn: why brains learn better than any machine ... for now | pages=162–163 | publisher = Viking | location = New York, New York | year = 2020 | isbn = 978-0-525-55989-4 }}</ref>▼
== Influence ==
Line 291 ⟶ 285:
Piaget also had a considerable effect in the field of [[computer science]] and [[artificial intelligence]]. [[Seymour Papert]] used Piaget's work while developing the [[Logo programming language]]. [[Alan Kay]] used Piaget's theories as the basis for the [[Dynabook]] programming system concept, which was first discussed within the confines of the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center ([[Xerox PARC]]). These discussions led to the development of the [[Alto (computer)|Alto]] prototype, which explored for the first time all the elements of the [[graphical user interface]] (GUI), and influenced the creation of user interfaces in the 1980s and beyond.<ref name="isbn978-0262041201">{{cite book |author=Drescher, Gary |title=Made-Up Minds: A Constructivist Approach to Artificial Intelligence |publisher=MIT Press |location=Boston |year=1991 |page=236 |isbn=978-0-262-04120-1}}</ref>
==
Piaget's theories have not gone without scrutiny. A main figure whose ideas contradicted Piaget's ideas was the Russian psychologist [[Lev Vygotsky]]. Vygotsky stressed the importance of a child's cultural background as an effect on the stages of development. Because different cultures stress different social interactions, this challenged Piaget's theory that the hierarchy of learning development had to develop in succession. Vygotsky introduced the term [[Zone of proximal development]] as an overall task a child would have to develop that would be too difficult to develop alone.▼
===Criticisms of Piaget's methods===
▲Judged by today's standards of psychological research, Piaget's research methods
Piaget's research relied on very small [[Sample (statistics)|samples]] that were not [[selection bias|randomly selected]]. His book ''The Origins of Intelligence in Children'' was based on the study of just his own three children.<ref name="Hopkins 2011">{{cite journal |title=The Enduring Influence of Jean Piaget |journal=APS Observer |year=2011 |last=Hopkins |first=J.R. |volume=24 |issue=10}}</ref> This means that it is difficult to generalize his findings to the broader population. He interacted closely with his research subjects and did not follow a set script, meaning that experimental conditions may not have been exactly the same from participant to participant, introducing issues of consistency.
[https://www.webmd.com/children/piaget-stages-of-development Other shortcomings of Piaget’s theory include overestimating an adolescent's cognitive abilities, underestimating an infant’s, and overlooking how much cultural and social factors affect children’s thinking..]
▲
▲These methodological issues mean
===Criticisms of Piaget's theoretical ideas===
▲Piaget's theories have not gone without scrutiny. A
Also, the so-called [[neo-Piagetian theories of cognitive development]] maintained that Piaget's theory does not do justice either to the underlying mechanisms of [[Information processing (psychology)|information processing]] that explain transition from stage to stage or [[individual differences]] in cognitive development. According to these theories, changes in information processing mechanisms, such as [[cognitive processing speed|speed of processing]] and [[working memory]], are responsible for ascension from stage to stage. Moreover, differences between individuals in these processes explain why some individuals develop faster than other individuals ([[Demetriou]], 1998).
Line 362 ⟶ 371:
The following groupings are based on the number of citations in [[Google Scholar]].
===
*''The Language and Thought of the Child'' (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1926) [''Le Langage et la pensée chez l'enfant'' (1923)]
*''The Child's Conception of the World'' (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1928) [''La Représentation du monde chez l'enfant'' (1926, orig. pub. as an article, 1925)]
Line 525 ⟶ 534:
*Vonèche, J.J. (1985). Genetic epistemology: Piaget's theory. In T. Husén & T.N. Postlethwaite (Eds.-in-chief), ''International encyclopedia of education'' (Vol. 4). Oxford: Pergamon.
*{{Cite journal | last1 = Wynn | first1 = T. | year = 1979 | title = The intelligence of later Acheulean hominids | journal = Man |series=New Series | volume = 14 | issue = 3 | pages = 371–391 | doi=10.2307/2801865| jstor = 2801865 }}
*{{Cite journal | doi = 10.1016/S0047-2484(81)80046-2 | last1 = Wynn | first1 = T. | year = 1981 | title = The intelligence of Oldowan hominids | journal = Journal of Human Evolution | volume = 10 | issue = 7| pages = 529–541 | bibcode = 1981JHumE..10..529W }}—
{{Refend}}
| |||