Jean Piaget's Stages of Cognitive Development

Jean Piaget’s prominent work is his theory on the four stages of cognitive development. He was
one of the most influential researchers in the area of developmental psychology in the 20th
century whose primary interest was in biological influences on how we come to know, and the
developmental stages we move through as we acquire this ability (Singer & Revenson, 1997, p.
13).
Piaget (1973) believed that the child plays an active role in the growth of intelligence and learns
by doing. He regarded the child as a philosopher who perceives the world only as he has
experienced it. Therefore, most of Piaget’s inspiration in cognitive and
intellectual development came from observations of children. In fact, Piaget observed and
studied his own three children through each stage of their cognitive development.
The theory of cognitive development focuses on mental processes such as perceiving,
remembering, believing, and reasoning. Reasoning is the essence of intelligence, and reasoning
is what Piaget studied in order to discover “how we come to know” (Singer & Revenson, 1997,
p. 13). Piaget believed that cognitive development is cumulative; that is, understanding a new
experience grows out of a previous learning experience.

Description of Piaget’s Theory on the Stages of Cognitive Development

Piaget (1973) developed a systematic study of cognitive development in children. His work
included a theory on cognitive development, detailed observational studies of cognition in
children, and a series of tests to reveal differing cognitive abilities.
Through his work, Piaget (1973) showed that children think in considerably different ways than
adults do. This did not mean that children thought at a less intelligent degree, or at a slower pace,
they just thought differently when compared to adults. Piaget’s work showed that children are
born with a very basic genetically inherited mental structure that evolves and is the foundation
for all subsequent learning and knowledge. He saw cognitive development as a progressive
reorganization of mental processes resulting from maturation and experience.
Piaget (1973) believed children will construct an understanding of the world around them, and
will then experience discrepancies between what they already know and what they discover in
their environment.
To explain his theory, Piaget used the concept of stages to describe development as a sequence
of the four following stages:
1. Sensory-Motor Stage
2. Preoperational stage
3. Stage of Concrete Operations
4. Stage of Formal Operations

Singer and Revenson (1997) explain that these stages unfold over time, and all children will pass
through them all in order to achieve an adult level of intellectual functioning. The later stages
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evolve from and are built on earlier ones. They point out that the sequence of stages is fixed and
unchangeable and children cannot skip a stage. They all proceed through the stages in the same
order, even though they may progress through them at different rates (p. 18).
At each stage, the child will acquire more complex motor skills and cognitive abilities. Although
different behaviours characterize different stages, the transition between stages is gradual, and a
child moves between stages so subtly that he may not be aware of new perspectives gained.
However, at each stage there are definite accompanying developmental changes in the areas of
play, language, morality, space, time, and number (Singer & Revenson, 1997).

Main Elements of Piaget’s Cognitive Development Theory

There are three elements to Piaget’s theory:
1. Schema
2. The four processes that enable the transition from one stage to another
3. The four stages of cognitive development

Schema
A schema is the basic building block of intelligent behaviour, a form of organizing information
that a person uses to interpret the things he or she sees, hears, smell, and touches (Singer &
Revenson, 1997). A schema can be thought of as a unit of knowledge, relating to one aspect of
the world including objects, actions, and abstract (theoretical) concepts. We use schemas to
understand and to respond to situations. We store them and apply them when needed.
A child is considered to be in a state of equilibrium or in a state of cognitive balance when she or
he is capable of explaining what he or she is perceiving (schema) at the time.
The dual processes of assimilation and accommodation (described below) are the building
blocks to forming a schema.
The Four Processes:
The four processes that enable the transition from one cognitive stage to another
are assimilation,accommodation, disequilibrium, and equilibration.Educators generally view
these processes as an explanation of cognitive learning processes, not just those that lead to
major shifts in cognitive ability (Piaget, 1973, p. 36).
Together, assimilation and accommodation are processes of adjustment to changes in the
environment and are defined as adaptation, the continuous process of using the environment to
learn. And, according to Piaget, adaptation is the most important principle of human functioning.
The Four Stages of Cognitive Development:
Piaget identified the following four stages in development of cognition:
 Sensory-Motor (Ages Birth Through Two)

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  Preoperational (Ages Two Through Seven)
 Concrete Operations (Ages Seven Through Eleven)
 Formal Operations (Ages Eleven Through Sixteen)

Piaget (1973) describes the four stages as follows:

Sensory-Motor Stage: Ages Birth through Two
The following information of the sensory-motor stage is a summary from Piaget (1973, p. 36).
The Sensory-Motor Stage extends from birth until approximately the age of two. During this
stage senses, reflexes, and motor abilities develop rapidly. Intelligence is first displayed when
reflex movements become more refined, such as when an infant will reach for a preferred toy,
and will suck on a nipple and not a pacifier when hungry. Understanding of the world involves
only perceptions and objects with which the infant has directly experienced. Actions discovered
first by accident are repeated and applied to new situations to obtain the same results.
Toward the end of the sensory-motor stage, the ability to form primitive mental images develops
as the infant acquires object permanence. Until then, an infant doesn’t realize that objects can
exist apart from him or herself.
Preoperational Stage: Ages Two through Seven
The following information of the preoperational stage is a summary from Piaget (1973, p. 36).
The child in the preoperational stage is not yet able to think logically. With the acquisition of
language, the child is able to represent the world through mental images and symbols, but in this
stage, these symbols depend on his own perception and his intuition. The preoperational child is
completely egocentric. Although he is beginning to take greater interest in objects and people
around him, he sees them from only one point of view: his own. This stage may be the age of
curiosity; preschoolers are always questioning and investigating new things. Since they know the
world only from their limited experience, they make up explanations when they don’t have one.
It is during the preoperational stage that children’s’ thought differs the most from adult thoughts.
Stage of Concrete Operations: Ages Seven through Eleven
The following information of the stage of concrete operations is a summary from Piaget (1973,
p. 36).
The stage of concrete operations begins when the child is able to perform mental operations.
Piaget defines a mental operation as an interiorized action, an action performed in the mind.
Mental operations permit the child to think about physical actions that he or she previously
performed. The preoperational child could count from one to ten, but the actual understanding
that one stands for one object only appears in the stage of concrete operations.
The primary characteristic of concrete operational thought is its reversibility. The child can
mentally reverse the direction of his or her thought. A child knows that something that he can
add, he can also subtract. He or she can trace her route to school and then follow it back home,

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or picture where she has left a toy without a haphazard exploration of the entire house. A child at
this stage is able to do simple mathematical operations. Operations are labeled “concrete”
because they apply only to those objects that are physically present.
Conservation is the major acquisition of the concrete operational stage. Piaget defines
conservation as the ability to see that objects or quantities remain the same despite a change in
their physical appearance. Children learn to conserve such quantities as number, substance
(mass), area, weight, and volume; though they may not achieve all concepts at the same time.
Stage of Formal Operations: Ages Eleven through Sixteen
The following information of the stage of formal operations is a summary from Piaget (1973, p.
36).
The child in the concrete operational stage deals with the present, the here and now; the child
who can use formal operational thought can think about the future, the abstract, the hypothetical.
Piaget’s final stage coincides with the beginning of adolescence, and marks the start of abstract
thought and deductive reasoning. Thought is more flexible, rational, and systematic. The
individual can now conceive all the possible ways they can solve a problem, and can approach a
problem from several points of view.
The adolescent can think about thoughts and “operate on operations, not just concrete objects.
He or she can think about such abstract concepts as space and time. The adolescent develops an
inner value system and a sense of moral judgment. He or she now has the necessary “mental
tools” for living his life.
Q:2

Characteristics of Creative People

Cognitive Rational Creative Individuals
Self-disciplined, independent, often antiauthoritarian
Zany sense of humor
Able to resist group pressure, a strategy developed early
More adaptable
More adventurous
Greater tolerance for ambiguity and discomfort
Little tolerance for boredom
Preference for complexity, asymmetry, openendedness
High in divergent thinking ability
High in memory, good attention to detail
Broad knowledge background
Need think periods
Need supportive climate, sensitive to environment
Need recognition, opportunity to share
High aesthetic values, good aesthetic judgment
Freer in developing sex role integration' lack of stereotypical male, female identification
Affective/Emotional-Social Creative Individuals
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A special kind of perception
More spontaneous and expressive Unfrightened by the unknown, the mysterious, the puzzling;
often attracted to it
Resolution of dichotomies: selfish and unselfish; duty and pleasure; work and play; strong ego
and ego lessens
Able to integrate
More self-accepting; lack fear of own emotions, impulses, and thoughts
Have more of themselves available for use, for enjoyment, for creative purposes; waste less of
their time and energy protecting themselves
Involved in more peak experiences, integration within the person and between the person and the
world, and transcendence
Capacity to be puzzled
Ability to concentrate
Ability to experience self as creative, as the originator of one's acts
Willingness to be born every day
Ability to accept conflict and tension rather than avoiding them
Courage to let go of certainties, to be different, to be concerned with truth, to be certain of one's
own feelings and thoughts and trust them
Identify closely with the feelings and expectations of others
Less repressed and defensive
More curious
More maturely autonomous and less dependent on views of others
Physical/Sensing Creative Individuals
Openness to experience, new ideas
An internal locus of evaluation
An ability to toy with elements and concepts
Perceiving freshly
Concern with outside and inside worlds
Ability to defer closure and judgment
Skilled performance of the traditional arts
High theoretical and aesthetic values
Intuitive Creative Individuals
More intuitive and open to admitting turbulent inner conflicts
Have their energy field accessible
Have ability to tap and release unconscious and preconscious thought
Are able to withstand being thought of as abnormal or eccentric
Are more sensitive
Have a richer fantasy life and greater involvement in daydreaming
Are more enthusiastic and impulsive
Often show abilities of synesthesia (e.g., tasting color, seeing sound, hearing smells)
Show different brain wave patterns than the less creative, especially during creative activity
Get excited and involved when confronted with novelty of design, music, or ideas (less creative
people get suspicious and hostile)
When given a new solution to a problem, get enthused, suggest other ideas.
Q:3

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Developing Clear Learning
Outcomes and Objectives
The Design phase of a typical curriculum development process
(Analysis, Design, Development, Implementation, Evaluation) is largely concerned with
developing clear learning outcomes and objectives. It is important to recognize during this phase
that there is a direct relationship between objectives and test questions.
Learning outcomes are broad goals that that describe what the learners are supposed to know or
be able to do and may be based upon:
the needs of the learner
the needs of society
what the learner should know about a particular subject
Because learning outcomes are broad goals, they are stated in general terms. For example, “The
learner will become familiar with the major forms and conventions of medieval literature” or
“The learner will develop a general understanding of hydrocarbon bearing formations” are both
reasonable learning outcomes. On their own, however, learning outcomes like these cannot be
observed, measured, or evaluated. Each learning outcome, therefore, must be supported and
defined by one or more specific objectives.
Objectives are the primary building blocks of good curriculum design. They support the learning
outcome in that each is a small step in arriving at what the learner is supposed to know or be
able to do. Objectives:

define specific outcomes or competencies to be achieved in terms of skills, content mastery,

attitudes, or values
form the basis upon which to select or design instruction materials, content, or techniques
provide the basis for determining or assessing when the instruction purpose has been
accomplished
provide a framework within which a learner can organize his efforts to complete the learning
tasks
Well-written objectives are carefully worded. They include qualifiers to restrict the conditions
and terms under which the objectives are met. For example:
Objective = Conditions + Performance + Criteria
Conditions: given “x” without “y” …
Performance: the learner will (verb)…
Criteria / Standards: accuracy / quality quantity time constraints
The verbs (action words) used in objectives are also important. In order for objectives to provide
a useful basis for creating test questions, they must contain verbs that describe observable,
measurable actions and specific levels of thinking, because these are things that can be tested.
(For more information about using appropriate verbs in your written objectives, refer to
Classifying Objectives below.)
Below are three examples of well-written objectives. Each defines the special conditions that
apply to the activity, the actual activity that the learner will perform, and degree of accuracy or
proficiency that the learner must meet.

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Example Objective #1: Given a list of 10 of the largest cities in the world, without
consulting a reference source, the learner will rank the cities by population, from largest to
smallest, with 100% accuracy.
Example Objective #2: Given a personal computer with a system disk, the learner will boot
the system from a powered-down status within three minutes.

Example Objective #3: Given a scenario of a community with a number of discarded tires,
the learner will devise a procedure for recycling them with minimal waste, and describe the
process in writing.
It would be easy to test whether a learner had achieved the objectives in these three examples,
because the conditions and criteria are explicit and the verbs describe observable, measurable
actions.
When objectives are this clearly defined, the related test questions virtually write themselves!
For example:
Test Question #1: Rank the following 10 cities according to their population. (100%
accuracy gets full marks)
Test Question #2: Using the system disk provided, boot the system from a powered-down
state. (Successful boot up within three minutes gets full marks.)
Test Question #3: Devise and describe in writing a procedure for recycling the discarded
tires with minimal waste. (Full marks at instructor’s discretion.)

Classifying Objectives
In education environments, learning outcomes and objectives are often loosely sorted into three
groups, called domains. These domains were identified by an educational psychologist named
Benjamin Bloom, and may help you to transform your objectives into test questions more easily.
cognitive domain – encompasses intellectual or thinking skills.
psychomotor domain – encompasses physical skills or the performance of actions.
affective domain – encompasses attitudes and values.
In each domain, Bloom identified several “levels,” each with a list of suitable verbs for
describing that level in written objectives. The following table describes the cognitive domain,
and is based on information from Benjamin Bloom’s book Taxonomy of Educational Objectives
(1956). The levels are arranged from the least complex levels of thinking to the most complex
levels of thinking.

COGNITIVE DOMAIN
Level and Meaning:
Use these verbs in written objectives to describe the associated cognitive level:
Knowledge: The remembering of previously learned material (recall of facts). define,
distinguish, identify, inquire, label, list, match, memorize, name, read, recall, recognize, relate,
repeat, record, select
Comprehension: The ability to grasp the meaning of the knowledge being learned. associate,
describe, differentiate, discuss, explain, extend, generalize, give examples, illustrate, infer,
interpret, locate, rearrange, reorder, restate, rewrite, summarize, transform, translate
Application: The ability to use learning materials in a new way.

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apply, calculate, choose, classify, demonstrate, develop, generalize, illustrate, operate, organize,
practise, restructure, sketch, solve, transfer, use
Analysis: The ability to break material down into its parts so that its organizational structure
may be understood. analyze, categorize, classify, compare, contrast, deduce, describe, detect,
diagram, discriminate, differentiate, distinguish, experiment, group, inspect, point out, put into
lists, question, sub-divide, test
Synthesis: The ability to combine previous experiences with new material to form a whole new
structure. combine, compile, create, design, generate, integrate, modify, plan, produce, propose,
solve
Evaluation: The ability to judge the value of material for a given purpose. appraise, assess,
choose, compare, conclude, consider, criticize, evaluate, judge, measure, rate, score, select,
support, validate, value
_
In every module of learning material, a variety of cognitive levels should be represented in the
objectives. To create a well-balanced learning experience, some objectives in each module
should deal with facts, some with concepts, and some with the application of the information.
Assuming that the objectives are both clearly defined and well written, this will also lead to test
questions that address a variety of cognitive levels.
Q:5

Five principles of pedagogy

J Bruner saying “Teaching is the canny art of intellectual temptation”. The argument of this post
is that teaching is a lot more than that.
I propose the following five key principles of good pedagogy:

 motivation;
 exposition;
 direction of activity;
 criticism;
 inviting imitation.
These principles may of course overlap and/or be sub-divided into sub-principles.

Motivation

Motivation is what J Bruner was talking about when he says that “teaching is the canny art of
intellectual temptation”. All of the other principles, if applied, will also contribute to motivation
by delivering an effective and engaging instructional process—but there is a sense in which
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motivation needs to be prior to the “delivery” of instruction. Motivation is likely to be dependent
on the personality of the teacher and his or her ability to develop a good relationship with the
student, understanding the student’s current world view, interests and experience, and framing
the learning to be achieved in a way that makes sense to the student.

This is what people mean when they talk about teaching being “relevant”—although this
formulation is not satisfactory because the purpose of teaching is to move the student beyond the
limited outlook of ignorant childhood, raising expectations and revealing the much
greater possibilities offered by the world outside their existing experience. Relevance to the
student’s existing experience is a good starting point but not a good outcome of education.
The dependence of inspiration on the relationship with the teacher means that computers have
only a supportive role to play in this field.

Exposition

Exposition (“chalk and talk”) gets a bad rap. It is transmissive, casts the student in a passive role,
and can often be dull. On the other hand, it is relatively cheap and easy to provide, if well done it
can be motivating, it gives the teacher an opportunity to establish his or her presence and
personality, it can summarise and articulate the key facts, principles and learning objectives. If
well done and done at the right time and the right way, it can be an important ingredient in a
wider mix—and for all the criticism that is made of it, it is still used heavily by all instructional
processes.

Good exposition requires an ability at public performance combined with good subject
knowledge, good preparation and often good supporting props. Exposition is easy to do badly:
hard to do well. It is not essential that exposition is managed solely by the classroom teacher:
online video delivered by e.g. the Khan Academy may provide a useful supplement to classroom
exposition, especially as online video can be accessed anytime, anywhere and is likely to be of
much higher quality than classroom exposition. That at least is the vision of the flipped
classroom.

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Direction of activity

As “we learn by doing”, so good instruction must rely heavily on activity. Pete Bell dislikes the
term “direction”, considering it too “command and control”—so let me break this down into its
constituent parts so we can at least agree what it is we are talking about.

Learning activity design

The design of activities that deliver particular learning objectives in an engaging way is a skilled
business, particularly when the medium through which learning activities are delivered becomes
digital (the production of serious games, simulations and creative tools is no trivial matter). At
the moment, this process is largely performed (normally not very well) by front line classroom
teachers. It is a central argument of Education’s coming revolution that this process needs to be
systematised and centralised: digital learning activities produced by specialist designers need to
become a commodity that can be bought or shared and automatically integrated with learning
management software.

Learning activity delivery

Once a learning activity has been designed, the activity needs to be delivered. In the non-digital,
physical world, the delivery of learning activity can be summarised by the term “facilitation”. In
the digital world, delivery can largely be automated. In practice, a good instructional process will
represent a blending of both types of activity.

Learning activity selection and sequencing

The selection of learning activities is a critical role of the teacher and needs to be directed by
several further sub-principles. The selection of activities (or “progression management” as I have
called it in In the beginning was the conversation) is highly suitable for automation by dedicated
software systems.

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A nalys ing the s tructure of the learning objectives

Clearly, learning activities should be relevant to the current learning objectives, which ultimately
are not set by the teacher. What the teaching process does require, however, is the disaggregation
of those top-level objectives into smaller prerequisite steps, that will guide the student through
the learning in a logical sequence. If you want to teach long division, you need to ensure that the
student is proficient at addition and subtraction first.
It is often said that you do not really understand a topic until you have to teach it. This is at least
partly because to teach something well, you need to analyse the essential structure of the
knowledge being taught.

This analysis is required for course design can be done by a course designer, who does not in
turn need to be the same person who designed the constituent learning activities or the same
person as the classroom teacher.

R es ponding to the conceptua l s tate of the s tudent

This may often go under the catch-phrase of adaptive learning. Not only does the teacher need at
the beginning of the course to select learning activities that are appropriate to his or her students,
but the teacher also needs constantly to monitor the extent of learning achieved by students at
each stage of the course, selecting activities that respond to the learning and maybe
misconceptions picked up at previous stages of the course. As argued (with reference to Dylan
Wiliam) in In the beginning was the conversation, progression management is often a better
response to student misconception that negative feedback.

R epetit ion and review

Memory (both knowing that and knowing how) tends to degrade. Learning activities therefore

need to be repeated regularly at first in order to ensure that the learning is laid down in long-term
and not just short-term memory. The intervals of review can becoming increasingly infrequent as
the learning is mastered.

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V ariation

Much learning in formal systems consists of the mastery of abstract principles. An abstract
principle that is studied only in abstract terms is never really understood at all, as the essence of
the abstract is the ability to apply it to a range of different concrete contexts.

Similarly, if an abstract principle is only studied in a single context, it is likely that the student
will learn only about the context in which the principle is learnt and not about the abstract
principle. It is therefore important that the teacher selects activities that illustrate the same
principle in a range of different contexts, so the student can practice the ability to recognise and
apply the abstract principle in unfamiliar contexts.

Incrementa l increas e in difficulty

It may be demotivating to fail too often—yet ignoring failure is likely to be harmful as it will
entrench the undesirable behaviours that led to failure. One way to resolve this paradox is to
reduce the chance of failure by sequencing activities so that the difficulty increases in small
increments, maximising the chance of success at each stage. This was the approach taken by B F
Skinner with machine learning. At the same time, having to progress at a snail’s pace through
material that the student finds easy can also be highly demotivating, so this needs to be combined
with the adaptive principle.

There are many ways in which activities may be made incrementally more difficult:

 instrinsically (e.g. by providing longer numbers for a sum in maths);

 by withdrawing help or scaffolding;
 increasing the number of stages of a problem that must be navigated;
 by creating more “open ended” activities (e.g. at higher levels on Bloom’s taxonomy);
 by unexpected timing (e.g. introducing an old topic out of the blue);
 by deeper contextualisation of an abstract principle (e.g. use of unfamiliar language).

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Criticism

Some will be uncomfortable with this word—but it is the right one. Criticism should be
constructive of course and there are times when criticism may be withheld, to be replaced by
progression management or an expectation that the student will work it out for themselves.
Ultimately, however, criticism is an essential part of the conversational loop (see again In the
beginning was the conversation). It is a key part of the teacher’s tool-set and students should
learning to accept criticism in the constructive sense that it ought to be offered.
Component parts of criticism are:

 evaluation;
 correction;
 contextual repetition of exposition;
 target setting.
At higher levels, the expert evaluation required will be beyond the capacity of computers and
will therefore be a primary function of the subject expert. At lower levels (e.g. routine marking
of simple problems), offering instantaneous assessment and feedback are functions to which
computer systems are well adapted.

Inviting imitation

Humans are mimics. Children and teenagers are naturally programmed to find role models and
copy them. Ideally, a child will choose to admire a teacher and seek to imitate them. Children
will also imitate each other and the degree to which this sort of imitation will be beneficial will
depend on the extent to which the peer culture is constructive.

The criterion on which a teacher is likely to be selected as a role model will in large part be
dependent on personality—and this is a tough call for teachers who may be expert at their subject
and diligent in marking work, if they are not at the same time seen to be quite as cool as the latest
celebrity on big brother.

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Teachers can support each other in this respect. The willingness of children to look favourably
on their teachers as role models may be influenced by the general culture of the school. Where
learning is not respected, it may be almost impossible for a teacher to be a potential role model
as well as being passionate about their subject. I suggest the following sub-principles which can
help promote beneficial imitation:

 fostering a peer culture in which learning is valued;

 the appointment of charismatic teachers in senior position (e.g. Head Teacher, Leading
Subject Teachers);
 the fostering of team-teaching whereby senior teachers can support junior teachers, and
junior teachers can, by working alongside senior teachers, learn the tricks of the trade;
 developing good relationships with students;
 teacher acting as collaborator (or “guide on the side”), illustrating for the benefit of
students ways in which problems can be addressed, which the student can then imitate;
 good discipline, where rival, negative peer role models are challenged early;
 personalisation of learning and effective use of praise.
As the last of these points illustrate, there is a relationship between effective motivational
strategies and selection of role models: a highly motivational teacher is also likely to be adopted
as a role model.

As much of this is a matter of personality, it may be argued that technology has little part of play.
However, technology can help in a number of ways, including the management of
personalisation and the reporting of learning outcomes to encourage the teacher in giving timely
praise.

I would argue that the opportunities for video conferencing and remote tutoring can also help.
This can help replace isolated classroom teachers with teaching teams led by “leading teachers”
– people who combine compelling charisma with strong subject knowledge, able to champion
the cause and help with the difficult task of offering a compelling alternative (and
complementary) set of motivations to the modern entertainment industry. Such leading teachers
would need to be supported by junior teachers and machine instruction, capable of addressing the
bread-and-butter management of learning, reporting and aggregating learning outcome data in
forms that are available to the whole teaching team.

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 Another advantage of the leading teacher concept will be that, being ultimately responsible for
large numbers of students, it will be possible to pay leading teachers significantly more than can
be afforded for classroom teachers, who are limited by the 30-in-a-classroom productivity
ceiling. This will help attract high calibre entrants to the profession and keep them “in the
classroom”.

Conclusion

Understanding the nature of pedagogy is a necessary prerequisite to understanding what role

technology will have in supporting education—and also to the selection of terms that we should
use to describe and classify the business of teaching.

Q:6

Why is Assessment Important?

Assessment is important because of all the decisions you will make about children when
teaching and caring for them. The decisions facing our three teachers at the beginning of this
chapter all involve how best to educate children. Like them, you will be called upon every day to
make decisions before, during, and after your teaching. Whereas some of these decisions will
seem small and inconsequential, others will be “high stakes,” influencing the life course of
children. All of your assessment decisions taken as a whole will direct and alter children’s
learning outcomes.  Below outlines for you some purposes of assessment and how assessment
can enhance your teaching and student learning. All of these purposes are important; if you use
assessment procedures appropriately, you will help all children learn well.

The following general principles should guide both policies and practices for the assessment of
young children:

Assessment should bring about benefits for children. Gathering accurate information
from young children is difficult and potentially stressful. Assessments must have a clear benefit
—either in direct services to the child or in improved quality of educational programs.

Assessment should be tailored to a specific purpose and should be reliable, valid, and fair
for that purpose. Assessments designed for one purpose are not necessarily valid if used for other
purposes. In the past, many of the abuses of testing with young children have occurred because
of misuse.

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
Assessment policies should be designed recognizing that reliability and validity of
assessments increase with children’s age. The younger the child, the more difficult it is to obtain
reliable and valid assessment data. It is particularly difficult to assess children’s cognitive
abilities accurately before age six. Because of problems with reliability and validity, some types
of assessment should be postponed until children are older, while other types of assessment can
be pursued, but only with necessary safeguards.

Assessment should be age appropriate in both content and the method of data collection.
Assessments of young children should address the full range of early learning and development,
including physical well-being and motor development; social and emotional development;
approaches toward learning; language development; and cognition and general knowledge.
Methods of assessment should recognize that children need familiar contexts to be able to
demonstrate their abilities. Abstract paper-and-pencil tasks may make it especially difficult for
young children to show what they know.

Assessment should be linguistically appropriate, recognizing that to some extent all
assessments are measures of language. Regardless of whether an assessment is intended to
measure early reading skills, knowledge of color names, or learning potential, assessment results
are easily confounded by language proficiency, especially for children who come from home
backgrounds with limited exposure to English, for whom the assessment would essentially be an
assessment of their English proficiency. Each child’s first- and second-language development
should be taken into account when determining appropriate assessment methods and in
interpreting the meaning of assessment results.

Parents should be a valued source of assessment information, as well as an audience for
assessment. Because of the fallibility of direct measures of young children, assessments should
include multiple sources of evidence, especially reports from parents and teachers. Assessment
results should be shared with parents as part of an ongoing process that involves parents in their
child’s education.4

Purposes of Assessment
Children
 Identify what children know
 Identify children's special needs
 Determine appropriate placement
 Select appropriate curricula to meet children's individual needs
 Refer children and, as appropriate, their families for additional services to programs and
agencies

Families
 Communicate with parents to provide information about their children's progress and
learning
 Relate school activities to home activities and experiences
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 Early Childhood Programs
 Make policy decisions regarding what is and is not appropriate for children
 Determine how well and to what extent programs and services children receive are
beneficial and appropriate

Early Childhood Teachers

 Identify children's skills, abilities, and needs
 Make lesson and activity plans and set goals
 Create new classroom arrangements
 Select materials
 Make decisions about how to implement learning activities
 Report to parents and families about children's developmental status and achievement
 Monitor and improve the teaching-learning process
 Meet the individual needs of children
 Group for instruction

The Public
 Inform the public regarding children's achievement
 Provide information relating to student's school-wide achievements
 Provide a basis for public policy (e.g., legislation, recommendations, and statements) 

 Formative and Summative Assessment
 Assessment is the process of gathering data. More specifically, assessment is the ways
instructors gather data about their teaching and their students’ learning (Hanna &
Dettmer, 2004). The data provide a picture of a range of activities using different forms
of assessment such as: pre-tests, observations, and examinations. Once these data are
gathered, you can then evaluate the student’s performance. Evaluation, therefore, draws
on one’s judgment to determine the overall value of an outcome based on the assessment
data. It is in the decision-making process then, where we design ways to improve the
recognized weaknesses, gaps, or deficiencies.
 The figure below represents the systematic process of assessment, evaluation, and
decision-making. The results (data) of the assessment (examinations, observations,
essays, self-reflections) are evaluated based on judgment of those data. What to do next
—the decision making step, is based on the evaluation.


 Assessment Evaluation Decision-Making

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
 Types of Assessment
 There are three types of assessment: diagnostic, formative, and summative. Although are
three are generally referred to simply as assessment, there are distinct differences
between the three.
 1. Diagnostic Assessment

 Diagnostic assessment can help you identify your students’ current knowledge of a
subject, their skill sets and capabilities, and to clarify misconceptions before teaching
takes place (Just Science Now!, n.d.). Knowing students’ strengths and weaknesses can
help you better plan what to teach and how to teach it.
 Types of Diagnostic Assessments
  Pre-tests (on content and abilities)
  Self-assessments (identifying skills and competencies)
  Discussion board responses (on content-specific prompts)
  Interviews (brief, private, 10-minute interview of each student)

 2. Formative Assessment

 Formative assessment provides feedback and information during the instructional
process, while learning is taking place, and while learning is occurring. Formative
assessment measures student progress but it can also assess your own progress as an
instructor. For example, when implementing a new activity in class, you can, through
observation and/or surveying the students, determine whether or not the activity should
be used again (or modified). A primary focus of formative assessment is to identify areas
that may need improvement. These assessments typically are not graded and act as a
gauge to students’ learning progress and to determine teaching effectiveness
(implementing appropriate methods and activities).
 In another example, at the end of the third week of the semester, you can informally ask
students questions which might be on a future exam to see if they truly understand the
material. An exciting and efficient way to survey students’ grasp of knowledge is through
the use of clickers. Clickers are interactive devices which can be used to assess students’
current knowledge on specific content. For example, after polling students you see that a
large number of students did not correctly answer a question or seem confused about
some particular content. At this point in the course you may need to go back and review
that material or present it in such a way to make it more understandable to the students.
This formative assessment has allowed you to “rethink” and then “re-deliver” that
material to ensure students are on track. It is good practice to incorporate this type of
assessment to “test” students’ knowledge before expecting all of them to do well on an
examination.
 Types of Formative Assessment
  Observations during in-class activities; of students non-verbal feedback during lecture
  Homework exercises as review for exams and class discussions)
  Reflections journals that are reviewed periodically during the semester
  Question and answer sessions, both formal—planned and informal—spontaneous
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  Conferences between the instructor and student at various points in the semester
  In-class activities where students informally present their results
  Student feedback collected by periodically answering specific question about the
instruction and their self-evaluation of performance and progress

 3. Summative Assessment

 Summative assessment takes place after the learning has been completed and provides
information and feedback that sums up the teaching and learning process. Typically, no
more formal learning is taking place at this stage, other than incidental learning which
might take place through the completion of projects and assignments.
 Rubrics, often developed around a set of standards or expectations, can be used for
summative assessment. Rubrics can be given to students before they begin working on a
particular project so they know what is expected of them (precisely what they have to do)
for each of the criteria. Rubrics also can help you to be more objective when deriving a
final, summative grade by following the same criteria students used to complete the
project.
 High-stakes summative assessments typically are given to students at the end of a set
point during or at the end of the semester to assess what has been learned and how well it
was learned. Grades are usually an outcome of summative assessment: they indicate
whether the student has an acceptable level of knowledge-gain—is the student able to
effectively progress to the next part of the class? To the next course in the curriculum? To
the next level of academic standing? See the section “Grading” for further information on
grading and its affect on student achievement.
 Summative assessment is more product-oriented and assesses the final product, whereas
formative assessment focuses on the process toward completing the product. Once the
project is completed, no further revisions can be made. If, however, students are allowed
to make revisions, the assessment becomes formative, where students can take advantage
of the opportunity to improve.
 Types of Summative Assessment
  Examinations (major, high-stakes exams)
  Final examination (a truly summative assessment)
  Term papers (drafts submitted throughout the semester would be a formative
assessment)
  Projects (project phases submitted at various completion points could be formatively
assessed)
  Portfolios (could also be assessed during it’s development as a formative assessment)
  Performances
  Student evaluation of the course (teaching effectiveness)
  Instructor self-evaluation

 Summary
 Assessment measures if and how students are learning and if the teaching methods are
effectively relaying the intended messages. Hanna and Dettmer (2004) suggest that you
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should strive to develop a range of assessments strategies that match all aspects of their
instructional plans. Instead of trying to differentiate between formative and summative
assessments it may be more beneficial to begin planning assessment strategies to match
instructional goals and objectives at the beginning of the semester and implement them
throughout the entire instructional experience. The selection of appropriate assessments
should also match course and program objectives necessary for accreditation
requirements.

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