JEAN PIAGET’S STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

Learning Objectives:
1. to describe Piaget’s stages in your own words;
2. conduct a simple Piagetian task interview with children; and
3. match learning activities to the learner’s cognitive stage.

Introduction:
-This theory is truly a classic in the field of educational psychology. It fuelled other researchers and theories
of development and learning. Its focus is on how individuals construct knowledge.
-concerns the emergence and construction of schemata (plural of schema) – schemes of how one perceives
the world – “developmental stages”, times when children are acquiring new ways of mentally representing
information.

Abstraction:
-Piagetian tasks –involved through observing a small number of individuals as they responded to cognitive
tasks that Jean Piaget designed.
-Piaget called his general theoretical framework “genetic epistemology” because he was interested in how
knowledge developed in human organisms.
-the implications of this theory is not only of cognition but also to intelligence and moral development.

Basic Concepts:
*Schema – refers to the mental framework for organizing concepts and information. It refers to the cognitive
structures by which individuals intellectually adapt to and organize their environment. It is the individual’s way to
understand or create meaning about a thing or experience.
-it is like the mind has a filing cabinet and each drawer has folders that contain files of things he has had an
experience with.
-.e.g. if a child sees a dog for the first time, he creates his own schema of what a dog is.
*Assimilation –process of making sense of experiences and perceptions by fitting them into previously established
cognitive structures (schemata)
-e.g. if the child sees another dog, this time a little smaller one, he would make sense of what he is seeing by
adding this new information (a different looking dog)
*Accommodation –process of creating new schemata.
-e.g. if the same child now sees another animal that looks a little bit like a dog….a funny looking dog - GOAT
*Equilibrium / Equilibration – achieving a proper balance between assimilation and accommodation. Piaget believed
that people have the natural need to understand how the world works and to find order, structure, and
predictability.
*Cognitive disequilibrium –a discrepancy between what is perceived and what is understood.
Note: Other constructivists – Bruner and Vygotsky

FOUR STAGES OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT:

Stage Ages Characteristics Examples

1. Sensorimotor
2. Pre-operational
Birth to 18 -24 *Piaget’s first stage of
months intellectual; developmental
in which the child moves
from reflexive activities
(reading, grasping and
sucking).
*Object permanence – this
is Piaget’s term for
children’s understanding
that objects continue to
exist even when they are
out of sight.
2 – 7 years old *Intelligence at this stage is
Focuses on the prominence of
the senses and muscle
movement through which the
infant comes to learn about
himself/herself around the
world.
Teachers should aim to
provide a rich and stimulating
environment with appropriate
objects to play with
A drawing, a written word, or
 intuitive in nature
*The child can now make
mental representations
and is able to pretend, the
child is now closer to
symbols
*Symbolic Function – this
is the child’s ability to
represent objects and
events.
*The child’s thinking is
egocentric. Egocentrism is
the tendency of the child to
only see his point of view
and to assume that
everyone also has his same
point of view. The child
cannot take the
perspective of others.
*Centration –this refers to
the tendency of the child to
only focus on one aspect of
a thing or event and
exclude other aspects.
*Irreversibility –this is the
child’s inability to reverse
their thinking
*Animism –this is the
tendency of children to
attribute human traits or
characteristics to inanimate
objects.
*Transductive Reasoning –
this refers to the child’s
type of reasoning that is
neither inductive nor
deductive
3. Concrete -Operational 7 – 11 years old *The child is able to think
logically but only in terms
of concrete objects.
*Decentering –refers to *No longer is the child
the child’s ability to focused or limited to one
a spoken word comes to be
understood as representing a
real object like a real MRT
train
*2 year old – may pretend
that she is drinking from a
glass which is really empty
*around 4 years of age – after
pretending to drink from an
empty glass, turns the glass
into a rocket ship or a
telephone
*age of 6 or 7 –can pretend
with objects that exist only in
his mind.
*6 – can do a whole ninja
turtle routine without any
costume nor “props”
*7 –can pretend to host an
elaborate princess ball only in
her mind
*5 year-old boy–buys a toy
truck for his mother’s birthday
* 3 year-old girl – who cannot
understand why her cousins
call her daddy “uncle” and not
daddy
*there is more water in the
taller glass (The child only
centered or focused on the
height of the glass).
*2+3=5 but cannot
understand that 5-3 is 2
*When at night, the child is
asked, where the sun is, she
will reply, “Mr. Sun is asleep.”
*if A causes B, then B causes
A. e.g. since her mommy
comes home everyday around
6 in the evening, when asked
why it is already night, the
child will say, “because my
mom is already home.”
 perceive the different aspect or dimension. This
features of objects and allows the child to be more
situations. logical when dealing with
*Reversibility –the child’s concrete objects and
ability to follow certain situations.
operations that can be *2+3=5 ; 5-3=2
done in reverse
*Conservation –the ability *A 50 mL-water in a narrower
to know that certain container has the same
properties of objects like volume when transferred to a
number, mass, volume or taller container.
area do not change even if
there is a change in
appearance.
*Seriation – ability to order *weight, volume or size
or arrange things in series
based on one dimension
4. Formal-Operational *This provides the ability to
reason and construct logic
useful for all types of
problems
*Hypothetical reasoning – *”what if” questions
the ability to come up with This can be done in the
different hypothesis about a absence of concrete objects.
problem and to gather and
weigh data in order to make
final decision or judgment.
*Analogical reasoning –the *if UK is to Europe, then
ability to perceive the Philippines is to Asia.
relationship in one instance
and then use that
relationship to narrow down
possible answers in another
similar situation or problem.
*Deductive reasoning –the *All countries near the North
ability to think logically by pole have cold temperatures.
applying a general rule to a Greenland is near the North
particular instance or pole. Therefore, Greenland
situation. has cold temperature.

From Piaget’s findings and comprehensive theory, we can derive the following principles:

1. Children will provide different explanations of reality at different stages of cognitive development.
2. Cognitive development is facilitated by providing activities or situations that engage leaRners and require
adaptation (i.e., assimilation and discussion).
3. Learning materials and activities should involve the appropriate level of motor or mental operations for a child of
given age; avoid asking students to perform tasks that are beyond their current cognitive capabilities.
4. Use teaching methods that actively involve students and present challenges.