Theories of Piaget and Vygotsky, Essay Example

Piaget’s Theory

It was Piaget who suggested that children enter the concrete operational stage of development at around 7 years of age. As such children enter a more substantive degree of logic and reasoning over objects and events. At age 11, they reach the fourth stage of cognitive development and a formal operational stage commences. He identified four key stages of learning: 1) Sensorimotor stage – birth to 2 years of age 2) Preoperational Stage – age 2-7  3) Concrete operations– age 7-11 and  4) Formal operations – age 11 to 15.  Piaget signified the importance of developing a curriculum to assist in the education of children and teachers need to be fully aware and take into consideration environmental factors in consideration of learning. Although his theory was criticised Piaget was one of the founding theorists in cognitive development and his contribution was considerable.  (David R. Shaffer, 2010)

Vygotsky Theory

It was a Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) who put forward an alternate theory in the teaching of adolescents. He stated that we are all made up from genes and cultures and we make sense of this by utilising the tools around us. It was the socio-cultural influences that helped in the cognitive development of our minds and in these sense languages, music and material objects.  A distinction existed in the nature and interaction of sociocultural development. Piaget was a cognitivist constructionalist whereas Vygotsky was considered to be a social constructionist. Vygotsky’s theory was considered to be more flexible and adaptable to the teaching of adolescents because it was not hampered by being in fixed sequential stages, as was Piaget’s theory.  (Smith, 2007).  The two psychologists were instrumental in putting forward two important theories of cognitive learning and sociocultural development.  (Kozulin, 1998).  Despite the differences in the two theoretical approaches there are a great deal of similarities that have now resulted in what is termed cognitive development to learning.

Works Cited

David R. Shaffer, K. K. (2010). Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence. In K. K. David R. Shaffer, Developmental Psychology: Childhood and Adolescence (pp. 249-298). Belmont CA: Wadsworth.

Kozulin, A. (1998). Psychological tools: a sociocultural approach to education. In A. Kozulin, Psychological tools: a sociocultural approach to education (pp. 29-34). Boston MA: Harvard University Press.

Smith, H. A. (2007). Teaching adolescents: educational psychology as a science of signs. In H. A. Smith, Teaching adolescents: educational psychology as a science of signs (pp. 129-135). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.