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Vygotsky (8 Marker)

The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky agreed with Piaget that a child’s thinking is qualitatively
different from adults but, he placed a greater emphasis on the importance of social context of
children’s learning. Vygotsky believed that culture is the prime determinant for a child’s
development and cognitive development is driven by a child’s biological maturation, but is also
a product of the child’s interaction with others. Cognitive development occurs in a child
through four ways when children internalise the tools of thinking through social interactions
with those who currently know more than they do. Vygotsky called this person the more
knowledgeable other; it refers to someone who has a better understanding or a higher ability
level than the learner, with respect to a particular task, process or concept. Children learn by
interacting with other people in a social context and in a specific culture. Child as an apprentice
is learning with others and sometimes the more knowledgeable other doesn’t always have to
be a teacher or adult, although the implication is that the more knowledgeable other is a
teacher or an adult, this is not true in many cases as a child’s peers or an adult’s children may
be the individuals with more knowledge or experience. The zone of proximal development is
the area between a child’s current level pf development and the potential level of development
that can be achieved with the help of another. Vygotsky sees the zone of proximal development
as the area where the most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given, allowing the child
to develop skills they will then use on their own, developing higher mental functions. The child
will first perform new activities with the more knowledgeable other and then be able to do it
themselves. Scaffolding is when the more knowledgeable other first identifies the parts of the
task that the child finds difficult in a social setting and then helps them with the parts of the
task that they found difficult providing a framework which supports them with their learning
and the support is matched to the child’s needs. Vygotsky claims that the effects of culture
have been supported in cross – cultural research for example Gredler pointed to the primitive
counting system used in Papa New Guinea as an example of how culture can limit cognitive
development. Counting is done by starting on the thumb of one hand and going up the arm and
down to the to the other fingers, ending at 29. This system makes it very difficult to add and
subtract large numbers, and this is a limiting factor for development in the culture of Papa New
Guinea. Vygotsky believed that language and thought are at first independent, but then
become interdependent. This is supported by a study done by Carmichael et al who gave
participants one of two labels for certain drawings. The participants were shown a kidney shape
and were told either that their drawing was a kidney bean or a canoe. When participants were
subsequently asked to draw the shape, the shape differed according to which label the
participants were given showing that words can affect the way we remember things. The zone
of proximal development was supported by McNaughton and Leyland who observed young
children working with their mothers on jigsaw puzzles of increasing difficulty, and then a week
later the children were observed working on their own. The children reached a higher level of
difficulty with their mothers than when working on their own defining the zone of proximal
development. When the children were doing puzzles that were too easy for them and below
the child’s zone of proximal development, the mothers were mainly concerned with keeping
the child on the task. At the second level which was within the child’s zone of proximal
development, the mother focused on helping the child solve the puzzle for themselves and at
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the third level which was beyond the child’s zone of proximal development the emphasis was
placed on completing the puzzle. In relation to Piaget, Vygotsky’s theory provides a bridge
between social and cognitive domains and is a more positive approach because the theory
suggests ways in which others can also be actively involved. Vygotsky’s theory has more
educational applications and in teaching where teachers use peer teaching and put children
into a group with mixed abilities. However, despite the number of studies that support the
features of Vygotsky’s theory, there has been little research done on his theory compared to
the amount of research that was conducted for Piaget. This is because Vygotsky’s theory is not
that easy to conduct and experiment on, as the concepts are more difficult to operationalise.
Piaget underplayed the importance of social influences, Vygotsky may have overplayed the
importance of social influences. If social influence alone is all that is needed for cognitive
development in a child then children would develop much faster than they actually do down
playing other factors such as biological factors which can also have an affect.