Piaget's Work Research Articles

The Piagetian method of critical exploration in understanding special educational needs

Abstract What can research into cognitive development contribute to work with children who have special educational needs? Criticisms of the use of Piagetian research in particular are examined. Counter‐criticisms and evidence of the fruitfulness of a Piagetian approach are presented. After selection and examination of key publications, illustrations of the use of Piaget's work are discussed. It is argued that a developmental approach, particularly Piaget's method of critical exploration, is most appropriate for advancing understanding of children with special educational needs.

Conservation—a Meaningful Gauge for Assessment

Piaget's work on number conservation and one-to-one correspondence has had a valuable impact on teachers' understandings of the development of mathematics concepts in young children. However, a potential misapplication is the tendency to use Piaget's tasks of conservation of number and one-to-one correspondence as a sort of “entrance exam” into classroom number work. Whereas children who can conserve participate fully in classroom number activities, non-conservers may receive no mathematics instruction at all. Or, they may passively observe instruction that is beyond their abilities while teachers wait for conservation to occur. This article proposes that teachers should examine the elements of mathematical understandings that precede conservation and one-to-one correspondence and tailor classroom instruction to benefit both conserving and nonconserving students.

The Reluctance to Change a Way of Thinking

The theory of Radical Constructivism is restated with emphasis on its two basic principles: 1) that knowledge is built up through subjective activity, and 2) that the function of cognition is adaptive and focused on the organisation of the experiential world. The work of Piaget is used both to illuminate an innovation in constructivistic theory that was misinterpreted, and to provide a language for analysing such misinterpretations. The most frequent misinterpretations and objections to Radical Constructivism are outlined and refuted. These include the issues of solipsism, instrumentation, the relativity of problems and solutions, and the constructivist analysis of language and communication.

Perturbations and Compensations in Social Cognitive Conflict: A Functional Analysis of Cognitive Development

Piaget's work from 1975 through 1980 added a dynamic aspect to his earlier formal structural model. This new work portrayed change in more functionalist terms and describes cognitive conflict referring to the process of perturbations and compensations to explain the regulations of the network of cognitive cycles. He suggests three types of balances or compensatory responses, alpha, beta, and gamma. These writings, however, ignore social interaction as a contributor to the process of perturbations and compensations. Doise and Mackie suggest that cognitive change and development is facilitated by peer interaction but they ignore the functional analysis of social collaboration. The present report presents data collected using selected Piagetian experiments in contradiction with Doise and Mackie's model. 30 children from 8 to 10 yr. of age worked in triads composed of homogeneous and heterogeneous groups, while 20 8- to 10-yr.-olds worked alone during five independent sessions on selected Piagetian tasks on contradictions. Analysis showed in general co-construction produced significant and generalizable progress when compared with those working alone. Analysis of videotapes suggests that compensations in co-construction conditions might be detected. A brief section concerns utility of Piaget's network of cognitive cycles. Those preliminary comments were taken from video recording of the social interaction.

Chronic disease: Effect on health cognition and health locus of control

An assessment of health cognition and health locus of control (HLOC) was obtained in 85 healthy and 81 chronically ill children, using instruments adapted from Piaget's work and standard HLOC measures. A relationship between HLOC and compliance was sought in a subset of children with spina bifida taught self-catheterization. Evidence of the developmental nature of health cognition and HLOC was documented. Contrary to the effect of experience in formal learning, experience with chronic disease did not alter developmental progression in these health-related areas. Our results suggest that in communicating with children about illness, the pediatrician's approach should not be altered by an appearance of superficial sophistication that some children may acquire as part of their experience with chronic disease.

Piaget's Genetic Epistemology and the Problem of Truth

Piaget's work represents, f?om his own point of view, not only a study of intelligence, but a remedy for philosophical studies of the same subject matter. Philosophy in general, according to Piaget, “does not give us knowledge, as it lacks methods of verification”, that is, it does not give knowledge of anything except the personality of the philosopher “sim-ply meditating in his study by the light of his own reason”. Philosophical reflection can serve a heuristic function, but cannot yield objective knowledge, of truth. Piaget succinctly states this crucial methodologicalposition as follows:Although speculative reflection is a fertile and even necessary heuristic introduction to all inquiry, it can only lead to the elaboration of hypotheses, as sweeping as you like, to be sure, but as long as one does not seek verification by a group of facts established experimentally or by a deduction conforming to an exact algorithm (as in logic), the criterion of truth can only remain subjective, in the manner of an intuitive satisfaction, of “self-evidence,” etc.

Essay Reviews: Making Mathematics: Children's Learning and the Constructivist Tradition

Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Twitter LinkedIn Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Paul Cobb; Essay Reviews: Making Mathematics: Children's Learning and the Constructivist Tradition. Harvard Educational Review 1 September 1986; 56 (3): 301–307. doi: https://doi.org/10.17763/haer.56.3.r2840370x17g3201 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu nav search search input Search input auto suggest Search

A Common Ground for Teachers of Language and Teachers of Literature: The Same Processes toward Different Goals

The of learning has influenced language teachers for many years. The notion that we learn most effectively when stimulated by the promise of reward or punishment (that is, theory) purports that the process of learning language is one of forming habits determined by negative and positive reinforcement. In our language classes, this leads us to manipulate normally natural stimuli by dividing language up into separate teachable subskills. These subskills are then artificially sequenced in the form of texts, syllabi, etc. The sequences chosen are based on imagined levels of difficulty or complexity, or on the notion that certain skills, constructions, or patterns must precede the introduction of other elements for the most efficient learning. Chomsky (26-58) carefully demonstrated the failure of reinforcement techniques as a major avenue toward assimilating a language. Furthermore psycholinguistic research (Slobin) on how children learn first language shows that parents rarely comment on the structures of language the child uses. Attention is focused on content. Chomsky pointed out that language form is extremely complex and still only partially understood. We have not yet reached a point at which we can even subdivide various language skills in order to then teach them. Furthermore, there aren't enough days in a lifetime to learn an entire language by trying systematically to master subskills. These facts, together with the knowledge that virtually all human beings lea n a completely developed language, rompted Chomsky to argue for an innate Language Acquisition Device which governs the language learning process. Therefore his focus is on heredity. His theory, however, is only concerned with explaining the innate facility to acquire language, not the genesis and development of it. Chomsky's generative grammar acknowledged only two alternatives: as Piaget puts it, either an innate scheme that governs with necessity, or acquisition from outside (cultural and therefore variable determination such as cannot account for the limited and necessary character of the schema in question). Piaget, on the other hand, claims there is a third possibility: There is heredity versus acquisition from outside, true, but there is the process of internal equilibration. Piaget's work has demonstrated that the equilibration process, or self-regulation also yields necessities. He claims, their results are more necessary than those determined by heredity, heredity varies much more than do general laws of organization by which the self-regulation of behavior is governed. (p. 90) Piaget's of equilibration and the construction of knowledge has bearing on the gulf between the teaching of literature and language. Where behaviorist theory emphasized the formation of habits and innatist theory isolated language learning from the rest of cognitive development, considering it a distinctly innate process, Piaget's brings together both environmental influences and innate or inherited faculties for learning and language acquisition with a third factor, the internal constructive mechanism which assimilates environmental variables (i.e., experiences) and accommodates existing cognitive structures for continued expansion of knowledge structures. Piaget argues that all learning from the earliest stages of sensory-motor development

Cognitive science and science education.

Cognitive science and science education.

Transition between sensorimotor and symbolic activities in nursery-reared chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes)

Bates's (1979) and Piaget's (1945) work with infants have demonstrated that language is not the only form of symbolic activity. These researchers however, have done more than identify other forms of symbolic behavior, they have suggested that some particular behaviors such as tool-use, object permanence and deferred imitation play a major role in the emergence of symbols. If language is only one form of symbolic activity, then it becomes possible to study other forms of symbolic behavior such as the one displayed in symbolic play. Some researchers ( Dasen et al., 1978 ; Inhelder et al., 1972 ) have studied the emergence of functional play and the beginnings of symbolic play. The results of these studies provide a framework of the human child's behavior during the period of transition between the sensorimotor and symbolic activities. On the other hand, the observation of chimpanzees in their natural environment and in captivity have shown that most of the behaviors identified as prerequisites in the emergence of language (e.g. tool-use, object permanence, etc …) are already present in this species. Until now however, studies have been oriented around language acquisition rather than on other forms of symbolic behavior. The purpose of this research is to determine if nursery-reared chimpanzees can display any type of symbolic behavior as human children do when they are interacting with objects normally present in their environment. Three different experiments were conducted over a four year period using a methodology for human children. The four subjects, however, were exposed to modeling sessions before each of the videotaping sessions in the last experiment because of their low levels of functional play in the previous experiments. Results have shown major differences between the chimpanzee and the human child. More specifically, the chimpanzee does not seem to reach the stage of transition between the sensorimotor period and the symbolic activity because of its low levels (when compared with the human child) of: (i) conventional use of objects; (ii) activities with two objects or more; (iii) ambiguous activities. Morcover, symbolic play is never observed during the experiments. Deferred imitation (e.g. conventional use of objects) thus seems to be the highest level of cognitive complexity displayed by the chimpanzee in the context of free play.

A review of research on formal reasoning and science teaching

AbstractA central purpose of education is to improve students' reasoning abilities. The present review examines research in developmental psychology and science education that has attempted to assess the validity of Piaget's theory of formal thought and its relation to educational practice. Should a central objective of schools be to help students become formal thinkers? To answer this question research has focused on the following subordinate questions: (1) What role does biological maturation play in the development of formal reasoning? (2) Are Piaget's formal tasks reliable and valid? (3) Does formal reasoning constitute a unified and general mode of intellectual functioning? (4) How does the presence or absence of formal reasoning affect school achievement? (5) Can formal reasoning be taught? (6) What is the structural or functional nature of advanced reasoning? The general conclusion drawn is that although Piaget's work and that which has sprung from it leaves a number of unresolved theoretical and methodological problems, it provides an important background from which to make substantial progress toward a most significant educational objective.All our dignity lies in thought. By thought we must elevate ourselves, not by space and time which we can not fill. Let us endeavor then to think well; therein lies the principle of morality. Blaise Pascal 1623‐1662.

Individual Piagetian Epistemological Development of Children from Ages 6 to 11

Abstract This long-term study of children from ages 6 to 11 was undertaken to support the patterns of cognitive development inferred from Piaget's work and its short-term statistical replications. Several Piagetian tasks were used individually with 48 first graders, some of the same and new tasks with 43 of the same children as third graders, and two new tasks with 38 of the same children as fifth graders. Pearson product-moment coefficients indicated that uses of the clinical tasks in the study agreed significantly with those in the literature. In 33 individual line graphs, the average age (as indicated in the literature) for the most difficult task performed by a child at each level was compared with the actual age for the child's performance. Although individual aberrations in rates and patterns of cognitive development were observed, the graphic data supported the main hypothesis of the study.

Cognitive development and adolescent disabilities

In this presentation I will try to bring together the cognitive development and dynamic orientations as they apply to the exacerbation of chronic disabilities and the etiology of disabilities in adolescents. I am afraid that I will have to use clinical observation and consensual validation as my primary data base as much of what I have to say has yet to be systematically investigated. I hope, therefore, that the presentation may stimulate research as well as discussion. From ancient times, it has been recognized that when children reach the of six or seven years, they also attain the age of reason, i.e., the syllogistic reasoning elaborated by Aristotle. It was not until Piaget's groundbreaking work on adolescent thinking (1) that a higher order of reasoning was given a developmental time tag. Piaget made clear that the propositional logic made prominent by Boole (2) and others was not attained until adolescence. Propositional logic is as different from syllogistic logic as algebra is from arithmetic. Algebra raises arithmetic to a higher power that is at once broader and more abstract. The equation (proposition) (a + b) 2 = a 2 + 2ab + b 2 holds true for whatever numbers are substituted for the letters. Propositional logic thus enables young people to consider possibilities as well as the here-and-now realities. Propositional logic underlies the understanding of historical time and celestial space. It permits young people to understand metaphor and simile (second-order symbols) as well as puns, political cartoons, satire, and allegory. In a very real sense, propositional logic permits teenagers to think in a new key.

Socrates on the Problem of Political Science Education

ONTEMPORARY POLITICAL SCIENCE finds itself unable to shake off a sense of malaise concerning its educational goals. At the heart of this uneasiness, it seems to me, is perplexity about both the character of moral principles and their proper place in social science education. The upheavals of the sixties left behind a heightened awareness-or better, a bad conscience-as regards teaching; we hear continually the cry for greater attention to values in classroom instruction and the writing of textbooks. An increasingly influential body of opinion, grounding itself on the work of Piaget, Rawls, and Kohlberg, presses for a training in moral judgment that would explicitly promote a rather egalitarian or left-leaning version of contemporary liberal ideology. On the other side, conservatives of various stripes demand more campus representation in the teaching of political science. As they look on at these developments, many in the profession wonder how the committed scholarship that is thus being promoted can possibly square with the aspiration to intellectual independence and objectivity demanded by the ideal of a scientific study of politics. Meanwhile, in the background (or backwater), there remain those of us who, while doubting the possibility of simply neutral or value-free social science, nevertheless look with deep misgivings on attempts to indoctrinate students in fashionable ideologies of left or right-however respectable the ideology and however sophisticated the rendition. We ask: Will this not merely reinforce the conformism, the shallow moralism, the easy virtue as Saul Bellow calls it, that now characterizes

Twenty Minutes to Mastery of the Cyrillic Alphabet

ABSTRACT Every teacher of Russian knows that sooner or later the Cyrillic alphabet must be taught in all elementary Russian courses. Unfortunately, the process of teaching and learning the alphabet for many is dull and time‐consuming. But teaching and learning the alphabet need not be simply an activity to be tolerated. Alphabet acquisition can actually be achieved rapidly, enjoyably, and successfully. How? Through the application of mnemonic research. The method described in this article teaches students to recognize the entire Cyrillic alphabet in twenty minutes. The syntax of the model is based on Lorayne and Lucas's Memory Model of Instruction. Within the syntax are five phases: attending to the materials, developing connections in class, practicing recall, using the information memorized as a basis for acquiring new information, and testing recall over time. The success of the model stems from the fact that the syntax is based on current, very convincing theories of information processing, many of which originate with Piaget's work in mnemonics and learning. The differences between long‐ and short‐term memory and their significance for alphabet acquisition are discussed. The syntax of the model also takes into account other key information processing concepts, such as the dependence of memory on understanding, a variable of which is age, and the enhancement of memory by heightened awareness. A letter presentation order and accompanying suggested word list is given, as well as a sample in‐class or homework exercise.

Piaget, Teachers and Psychologists

One of most obvious and at same time most surprising things about Piaget's work is great interest in it shown by people concerned with education. There are two reasons for wondering at their enthusiasm. One is that Piaget himself was not particularly interested in their subject. True, he directed Institut des Sciences de l'Education in Geneva and true, too, he wrote a book about education (Piaget, 1971). But name of his department was misleading, since its subject was really Psychology or at any rate Child Psychology, and one book only among such a prodigious output is really very small beer. Piaget himself often expressed disdain for most obvious and least sophisticated educational question to be expressed about intellectual development he charted so meticulously-which was how to hurry this development on. He called it the American question, and that was not meant as a compliment. But of course interests can go one way and not other. The fact that Piaget paid little attention to educational questions does not mean that there was nothing of interest in his theory to educationalists. There is, however, a more serious reason for wondering why his impact on education has been so great, and that concerns his view of language. A teacher talks to children and spends a lot of time telling them how to do things. One way and another his or her work is based on idea that someone, who has knowledge and skills, can transmit them to others who have less of them or do not have them at all. Yet in Piaget's view this sort of activity had virtually nothing to do with children's intellectual development. Language seemed to him to depend on cognitive development and to follow it. The child, he argued, learns to express various concepts verbally only as a result of conquering these concepts first. The idea that intellectual development was product of some direct communication from adult to child was anathema to Piaget and his colleagues. He thought it entirely inadequate on its own: it would only work, he argued, if child had somehow managed to arm himself with necessary intellectual structures first. In a word, whenever it is a question of speech or verbal instruction, we tend to start off from implicit postulate that this educational transmission supplies child with instruments of assimilation as such simultaneously with knowledge to be assimilated, forgetting that such instruments cannot be acquired except by means of internal activity, and that all assimilation is a restructuration or a reinvention (Piaget, 1971: p. 39). Where does that leave teacher? Does it not mean that teacher is doomed to be peripheral at best and ineffective at worst? I still find it hard to find a plausible answer to this question and I suspect that at bottom Piaget had little respect for teacher's business. Yet if you look at almost any new programme for teaching science or mathematics to young children, there Piaget tangibly is. His work is cited 251

Brief Reviews

292Reviews Brief Reviews Longman Dictionary of Psychology and Psychiatry, ed. Robert M. Goldenson. A Walter D. Glänze Book. New York and London: Longman, 1984. Pp. xvi + 816. As might be expected from its title, this work is in some respects more encyclopedic than lexical in its focus, and it lacks much of the usual dictionary apparatus: pronunciations (except in a few cases where usage is divided [as in cynophobia] or not transparent from spelling [as in cyanosis]), etymologies (except where the origins of terms are illuminating [as in the entry for entropy ] or amusing [as in the entry for syphilis], sense divisions, part-of-speech labels, or systematic field and usage designations. Nonetheless, it is an innovative work in lexicography and worthy of attention outside the psychosciences. Its innovations are attributed by its editor to Walter D. Glänze, a member of the younger generation of lexicographerentrepreneurs who produce wordbooks for the commercial marketplace. Glanze's "Methodological Notes" (pp. ix-xv) are especially worthy of attention by readers of Dictionaries. As he explains, "one of the marks of a good dictionary is that it is easy to use. . . . These Methodological Notes, therefore, are addressed to the reader who loves reference works, and wants to use them to the greatest effectiveness. And while the main purpose of these Notes is to render account of the [three] editors' methods, they may contribute to throwing light on the richness of the subject." The sections of this essay on method include among other topics: alphabetical order, the entry headword, article entries, reference entries (these include cross-references to synonyms and to related terms), other cross-references, and entries with special styles (e.g., those for drugs, biographical notes, and trademarks). This explicit treatment of matters often described only in unpublished style manuals is interesting and thorough. Reviews293 The dictionary itself is carefully edited and handsomely produced. Its editor claims that it is the largest work of its kind with 21,164 headwords (including cross-references treated as headwords): "entries for 488 kinds of tests; over 300 entries for therapies; 70 entries treating Piaget's work and ideas, 100 treating Jung's; entries for 93 kinds of manias, 61 kinds of neuroses, 72 kinds of psychoses, 36 kinds of complexes; about 500 entries for phobias; 550 entries denoting syndromes and diseases; thousands of entries for individual symptoms and signs. . . ." (p. vii). From these figures alone, one is inclined to marvel at the perversity of human behavior and at the ingenuity of professionals in psychology and psychiatry. A full-scale review of this work was promised to Dictionaries by Donald B. Sands whose sudden death in July 1984 prevented him from completing it and deprived the Society of a faithful member. In his notes for his projected review, he identified the omission of rubophobe for a person who dislikes country people (see The New Yorker, 26 September 1983, p. 60), but we may absolve the editor of the omission of this nonce form on the grounds that it is not part of the professional language of the field. Some of the terms included, however, may well be of such general currency that they hardly belong in a specialized lexicon (e. g., day-careprogram,free base, andprobability)', but the wealth of specialized terminology—including the entire contents of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual ofMental Disorders of the American Psychiatric Association—makes this work a standard for the field. *** Heinemann New Zealand Dictionary, ed. H. W. Orsman. Auckland: Heinemann Educational Books (NZ) Ltd., 1979. Pp. ? + 1339. 294Reviews One mark of the emergence of national varieties of English is the production of general-purpose dictionaries that purport to incorporate the entire array of the nation's English vocabulary, whether it belongs to the common core known to all English-speakers or to the local community alone. Such a work has now appeared for New Zealand, though based on what the chief editor (Katherine Harber, in distinction to the general editor, H. W. Orsman of Victoria University of Wellington) calls "the highly successful Heinemann Australian Dictionary" of 1976. This work does not attempt the density of information found in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate or in the Longman Dictionary...

The Effects of the Structure of Play Objects on the Pretend Play of Low-Income Preschool Children

McLoYD, VONNIE C. The Effects of the Structure of Play Objects on the Pretend Play of LowIncome Preschool Children. CHriLD DEVELOPMENT, 1983, 54, 626-635. The effects of highstructure versus low-structure objects on various types and components of pretend play in a sample of 36 low-income, predominantly Afro-American preschoolers were examined. Competing hypotheses, derived from the work of Piaget and El'Konin, and claims about the relative holding power of low-structure and high-structure toys, were tested. 12 triads of children, equally divided by age and sex, were observed in 4 30-min play sessions. In 2 of the sessions, high-structure or replica objects (e.g., tea sets, dolls, trucks) were available; in the remaining 2, low-structure objects (e.g., pipe cleaners, blocks, boxes) were provided. The results were generally consistent with El'Konin's analysis of symbolic play development. Highstructure objects, compared with low-structure objects, significantly increased noninteractive pretend play in 312-year-old triads, but not in 5-year-old triads. High-structure objects also elicited significantly more associative pretend play and overall pretend play. However, the structure of the play objects did not significantly affect cooperative pretend play. Substitution was more frequent with low-structure objects, while high-structure objects were associated with more pretend themes and onomatopoeia.

Thinking about language: Metalinguistics and Piagetian Theory

This paper explores the parallel drawn recently between Piaget's work on awareness and aspects of language development. The comparison seems to be a useful one although in some respects the parallel is not entirely satisfactory. In particular, in Piaget's examples it was obvious whether or not an action had been successful but in language development the relationship between an intended meaning and its expression is much more problematic for the child.

The Social Economy – Analogue of Piaget's Development of Knowledge

This essay belongs to the large group of studies of the aggregation problem having the general aim of finding how the group, regarded as an entity, should go about constructing an opinion from its members' opinions. The present work studies the transformation of opinions to knowledge or, economically speaking, the transformation of presumed private economic means into real social assets and their structure in justice under the condition of irreversibility of events. It is the purpose of this paper to show that progress can be made in this area by consider? ing the development of wealth in analogy to Jean Piaget's work on the development of knowledge. Piaget [1970a, 1970b, 1973, 1977, 1978 and Bringuier], the eminent child psychologist, showed that the development of knowledge of the child is isomorphic with the development of scientific knowledge in all fields. His conclusion in this genetic epistemology is that the various kinds of knowledge are differentiated organs of regulation of functional exchanges with the external world. Each piece of knowledge is an asset, a parcel of human capital, in the development or transformation of the person and of the world. These knowledge groups are cohesive, that is, they can circulate in transformation interpersonally from mind to mind, as well as in exchange for external assets independently of psy? chological and cultural conditions. Piaget's epistemology is limited. He is not concerned with affectivity except to recognize it as a motor in gaining new knowledge; nor does he include in his study the knowledge associated with the theological vir? tues of faith, hope and love. Nonetheless, by his ingenious method of isolating children's ways of reasoning, he found that they learn by inventing structures of thought. These increase in complexity as the child grows older and more experienced. In this manner, successive knowledge structures are invented, accounting for the permanence of objects, of space, time, causality and other features of reality. These reasoning structures are not Kantian-like categories, given in the beginning, once and for all, but are rather the developmental results of the interplay of the exterior world and the child's action in an inno? vating process. The structures are always systems of transformation and simultaneously the locus whence the next type of transformation begins.