2.

8 Jean Piaget's Developmental Theory

Cognitive theory has been influenced perhaps no more than by the Swiss psychologist , Jean
Piaget. Although Piaget's work began in the early part of the Twentieth Century, it had
little influence in the US until the 1960s. Piaget's chief collaborator, Barbel Inhelder,
attended the 1959 Woods Hole Conference chaired by Jerome Bruner. This conference
precipitated interest in Piaget's ideas on cognitive development and led to a great deal of
attention by educators (science educators, especially) and psychologists (Bell-Gredler,
1986).

Piaget's theory focuses on the development of thinking patterns from birth to adulthood.
To Piaget learning is an active process, and is related to the individuals interaction with the
environment. According to Piaget, intellectual development is similar to the development of
biological structures, such as those shown in mollusks. Margaret Bell-Gredler describes
Piaget's thinking this way.

"He found that certain mollusks, transported from their calm-water habitat to turbulent
wind-driven waters, developed shortened shells. This construction by the organism was
essential for the mollusks to maintain a foothold on the rocks and thereby survive in rough
water. Furthermore, these biological changes, which were constructed by the organism in
response to an environmental change, were inherited by some descendents of the mollusks.
The organism, in response to altered environmental conditions, constructs the specific
biological structures that it needs." (Bell-Gredler, 1986, p. 193-194)

To Piaget, this biological development describes the nature of intellectual development.

Intelligence is the human form of adaptation to the environment. Piaget, and other cognitive
scientists, theorize that cognitive structures (mental structures) grow and develop through
a process of interaction with the environment. How do these mental structures develop?

Development of Mental Structures

According to Anton Lawson and John Renner (Lawson and Renner, 1986), both science
educators, the most important idea in Piagetian theory is that mental structures (which
they nicely describe as mental blueprints) are derived from the dynamic interaction of the
organism and the environment by means of a process called self-regulation or equilibration.
Lawson and Renner also point out that the mental structure comes not from the organism or
the environment alone, but from the organism's own actions within the environment. This
idea that the individual constructs the mental structure is an underlying principle in all
cognitive theories that will be discussed in this chapter.

Let's look at an example of self-regulation in the classroom.of a teacher who applies

Piaget's theory. The teacher is presenting a unit on air pressure to the a group junior high
students. A demonstration in progress. The teacher heats up a metal can containing a small
amount of water. After a few minutes steam begins to rise out of the can. The teacher
removes the can from the heat source (a hot plate) and caps it. Then the teacher waits. In a
few moments the can begins to cave in, bends to the side and falls over. The teacher then
asks students to describe and explain what they observed. For many of the students this
event is a contradiction or a discrepancy. Discrepancies produce a state of disequilibrium in
which you are literally thrown off balance.

According to Lawson and Renner, the students present mental structures are inadequate to
explain the "crushed can" and they must be altered. By means of interaction with the
environment (doing experiments and activities on the effects of pressure changes on
material objects, for instance), the student can assimilate the new situation, and build new
structures. Later in this chapter, in the section that deals with conceptual change teaching,
you will find out that it is not an easy matter to change students current mental structures
or conceptions.

According to cognitive scientists, there are three additional factors that influence the
development of mental structures: experiences with the environment, maturation and the
social environment.

Experience with the environment is essential since the interaction with the environment is
how new structures are made. Piaget distinguishes between two types of experiences,
namely concrete and abstract (logico-mathematical). It is important to remind ourselves
that knowledge is constructed through experience, but the type of knowledge will be
dependent on the type of experiences the individual is engaged in. Concrete experiences are
physical experiences in which the student has a direct encounter with physical objects.
Piaget suggested that interaction with material objects was essential to the development of
thinking. Lawson and Renner suggest that science teachers should use the laboratory to
precede the introduction of abstract ideas (Lawson and Renner, 1986).

Students need more than experiences with the environment, they also need to interact
socially. Here the role of language, and verbal interaction in the classroom environment will
accelerate or retard cognitive development. The crucial aspect of this factor is that
students be given the opportunity to examine and discuss their present beliefs and
conceptions. The science teacher should not only provide concrete and abstract experiences
with the environment, but must provide for social interaction via the use of language. Small
and large group discussions are crucial to the development of cognitive structures.

The third factor facilitating the process of self-regulation is maturation. Piagetian theory
is developmental, thereby placing importance on the maturation level of the student.

Cognitive development is a cyclic process involving interaction with new events, materials,
properties, and abstractions. Science educators have developed a unique model of learning
that is based on Piaget's theory of development.
Cognitive Processes and the Learning Cycle

According to Piaget, the development of new cognitive structures will be the result of three
different mental processes: assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration. Cognitive
development is the result of the individual's interaction with the environment. The nature
of the interaction is an adaptation involving these three mental processes.

Assimilation. Assimilation is the integration of new information with existing internal mental
structures. A student who identifies the rock sample as coarse-grained rock as granite is
assimilating that rock into his or her schema of rocks. Piaget suggested that assimilation
was dependent on the existence of an internal structure so that the new information
integrated.

Accommodation. Accommodation is the adjustment of internal structures to the particular

characteristics of specific situations, events, or properties of new objects. Biological
structures, for example, accommodate to the type and quantity of food at the same time
that the food is being assimilated. Piaget theorized that in cognitive functioning, internal
mental structures adjust to the unique properties of new objects and events.

Equilibration. Equilibration, like assimilation and accommodation, has a biological parallel. The
organism, in biological functioning, must maintain a steady state within itself at the same
time remaining open to the environment to deal with new events and for survival. In
cognitive functioning, equilibration is the process that allows the individual to grow and
develop mentally, but maintains stability. Piaget suggests, however, that equilibration is not
an immobile state, but rather a dynamic process that continuously regulates behavior.

This cycle of assimilation, accommodation and equilibration has been used as a basis for the
development of several science teaching cycles called the learning cycle. One of these
cycles is shown in Figure 2.22 Three teaching processes, exploration, invention and
discovery (expansion of the idea) are parallel processes to assimilation, accommodation and
equilibration.
Figure 2.22 The learning cycle integrates the three phases of learning: exploration, conceptual invention and
discovery (Based on Charles R. Barman, An Expanded View of the Learning Cycle: New Ideas About an Effective
Strategy. Monograph and Occasional Paper Series #4, Council for Elementary Science International.

Exploration is an active process involving the students directly with objects and materials.
The exploration phase can be open ended, or can be structured by the teacher. The
important element is the active engagement of the student for the sake of creating some
disequilibrium. During the exploration phase students observe, gather data, and experience
new phenomena.

Invention (concept introduction) is the phase in the learning cycle that is analogous to
accommodation when new structures are built to integrate new information. Renner calls
this phase conceptual invention. The invention process has a high degree of teacher
direction. Using the language and experiences of the exploration phase students invent new
concepts with the aid of the teacher. The experiences students had during the exploration
phase are used as data for a new structure that is proposed by the teacher. The invention
phase is interpretive. Students process new information, and modify current conceptions
and frameworks in order to accommodate the new information.

The discovery phase is designed to provide the students with active learning situations
where they can apply, test and extend the new ideas and concepts. The discovery phase is
analogous to equilibration, but like equilibration, it is dynamic. Students, even at this phase,
are still in a state of disequilibrium, and require further exposure to active learning lessons.
The discovery phase allows the student to apply the new ideas to different situations,
further reinforcing the development of new mental frameworks.

This is a brief introduction to the learning cycle. You will find more information on the
learning cycle idea and application to science teaching strategies in Chapter 7 and in the
section on lesson planning in Chapter 9.
Piaget's Stages of How Students Think

Piaget identified four stages or patterns of reasoning that characterized human cognitive
development. Piaget viewed these as qualitative differences in the way humans think from
birth to adulthood. At each stage the individual is able to perform operations on the
environment in order to develop cognitive structures. A summary of the four stages are
shown in Figure 2.23

Figure 2.23 Piaget's Stages of Development (based on Bell-Gredler, 1986, p. 205)

Stage Overview

Sensorimotor period(birth - 1-1/1-2 years) This is the period is characterized as

presymbolic and preverbal. Intellectual
development is dependent on action of the
child's senses and response external stimuli.
Child is engaged in action schemes such as
grasping and reaching for distant objects.
Characteristics include: reflex actions, play,
imitation, object permanence, nonverbal.

Preoperational period (2-3 to 7-8 years)
Child's thought is based on perceptual cues
and the child is unaware of contradictory
statements. For example child would say that
wood floats because it is small and a piece
steel sinks because it is thin. Characteristics
include: language development, egocentrism,
classification on single feature,
irreversibility.

Concrete operational period (7-8 to 12-14
years)
Logical ways of thinking begin as long as it is
linked to concrete objects. Characteristics
include: reversibility, seriation,
classification, conservation (number,
substance, area, weight, volume).

Formal operational period (older than 14)
Students are able to deal logically with
multifaceted situations. They can reason
from hypothetical situations to the concrete.
Characteristics include: theoretical
reasoning, combinatorial reasoning,
proportional reasoning, control of variables,
probabilistic and correlational reasoning

Sensorimotor stage. Beginning at birth to about 2 years, the first stage is characterized
by perceptual and motor activities. The behavior of children during this stage can be
described as nonverbal, reflex actions, play, imitating others, and object permanence. Early
in this stage of development, if an object which the child has seen is removed from view,
the object is forgotten (Out of sight, out of mind). However, later in this stage, if a child
was playing with an object, and it gets hidden from view, the child will look for the object.

The child from the beginning is an agent of his or her own cognitive development. Piaget
described the young infant as taking control in procuring and organizing all experiences of
the outside world. Young children follows with their eyes, explore things, and turn their
heads. They explore with their hands by gripping, letting go, pulling, pushing. We all
recognize the exploration of children with their mouths. The child continues its exploration
with body movements, and extends this exploration by putting hands, eyes and mouth into
action at once. With these early life explorations, the child, according to Piaget develops
mental schemes or patterns based on these experiences. These experiences, particularly if
they are satisfying, will be repeated by the child. Through the processes of assimilation and
accommodation, the child builds internal structures; the child adapts to the world.

Near the latter phase of this stage the child's experiences are enriched by means of
imaginative play, combined with greatly enhanced exploratory abilities, namely questioning,
listening and talking. These activities lead the child to the next stage of cognitive
development, the preoperational stage.

Preoperational stage. During the preoperational stage (ages 2 to 7 years), the child's
intellectual abilities expand greatly. The child, during this stage, is able to go beyond direct
experience with objects. The preoperational child is able to represent objects in their
absence, thereby developing the ability to manipulate in the mind. Thus the child can engage
in activities such as symbolic play, drawing, mental imagery and language.

The chart below (Figure 2.24) compares how the child's mental abilities change from the
beginning of the operational stage to the end of this stage. Note the differences in abilities
at the beginning phase during which the child can classify only on the basis of one
characteristic, as well as not being able to conserve compared to the latter phase of this
stage in which the child can conserve mass, weight and volume.

Figure 2.24. Differences During Early and Late Phases of the Preoperational Stage
Preoperational Stage: Ages 2 Preoperational Stage: Ages 4-7
-4 (Called the intuitive phase)

Classify on the basis of single Able to form classes or

property categories of objects.

Unable to see that objects alike Able to understand logical

in one property might differ in relationships of increasing
others. complexity.

Able to collect things based on a Able to work with the idea of

criterion number.

Can arrange objects in a series, Develops the ability to conserve,

but cannot draw inferences eg. mass, weight, volume,
about things that are not continuous quantity, number
adjacent to each other.

Concrete operational stage. The concrete operational stage begins around the age of
seven, and extends to the ages of 12 - 14. During this stage of development individuals learn
to order, classify, perform number operations such as adding, subtracting, multiplying and
dividing. They also learn to conserve, develop the ability to determine the cause of events,
and space/time relationships.

Concrete operations means that the child is able to perform various logical operations but
only with concrete things. An operation is an action---a manipulation of objects . We might
think of an operation as a reasoning pattern. Since most of the students that you will teach
will be either at the concrete or formal stage of development (or in transition between
these stages), we will explore these reasoning patterns in some detail. At the concrete
stage there are several reasoning patterns that impinge on science teaching, and ones that
will effect students performance in your classroom. These reasoning patterns include: class
inclusion, serial ordering, reversibility and conservation (Figure 2.25)

Class inclusion is an important pattern of reasoning in science courses. Class inclusion is a

prerequisite for the development of concrete concepts such as animal, plant, rock, mineral,
planet. For example, suppose you show a student a picture of some plants (carrot, grass, oak
tree, cabbage, dandelion). In this task the student is asked to identify which of the
pictures is a plant. Most children will readily include the grass in the category of plant, but
not tree, carrot or dandelion. (the tree was a plant when it was little, but now it is big, and
therefore a tree). As students grow older and their cognitive development gets more
sophisticated, and their experiences widen, they will develop the ability to include all these
objects in the general class of plant.

Students are conservers in the concrete stage. For example, they are able to understand
that the quantity of a substance remains the same if nothing is added or taken away. To
understand this show a student a ball of clay the size of a tennis ball. After the student has
observed the ball, roll it into a cylinder. Then ask the student if the cylinder (you can call it
a snake or a dog) has more, less, or the same amount of clay as the ball. The student that
can conserve mass will respond that the cylinder has the same amount of clay. Conservation
abilities develop in different areas such as number, mass, weight, and volume.

Figure 2.25. Concrete Reasoning Patterns

Concrete Reasoning Pattern (operations) Explanation and examples

Class inclusion Classifying and generalizing based on

observable properties (e.g. distinguishing
consistently between acids and bases
according to the color of litmus paper;
recognizing that all dogs are animals but that
not all animals are dogs.

Serial ordering Arranging a set of objects according to an

observable property and possibly
establishing a one-to-one correspondence
between two observable sets (e.g. small
animals have a fast heart beat while large
animals have a slow heart beat.

Reversibility Mentally inverting a sequence of steps to

return from the final condition of a certain
 procedure to its initial condition (after being
shown the way to walk from home to school,
finding the way home without assistance.

Conservation Realizing that a quantity remains the same if

nothing is added or taken away, though it
may appear different (e.g. when all the water
in a beaker is poured into an empty
graduated cylinder, the amount originally in
the beaker is equal to the amount finally in
the cylinder.

The reasoning patterns in the concrete operational stage can be explored by administering
tasks to individual students. By administering Piagetian tasks, you can develop insights into
the reasoning abilities of your students. You might want to do Activity 2.3, Piagetian
Concrete Reasoning Tasks. To compare students' concrete and formal reasoning patterns,
you might do Activity 2.4 , The Mealworm and Mr. Short Puzzles.

Formal operational stage. The formal operational stage (over age 14), is in Piaget's theory,
the stage where students can think scientifically. They are capable of mental operations
such as drawing conclusions, construct tests to evaluate hypotheses, in short an expanded
set of logical operations. The logical or formal operations, which again, we will call reasoning
patterns include theoretical reasoning, combinatorial reasoning, functionality and
proportional reasoning, control of variables, and probabilistic reasoning. According to
Piagetian theory most students in high school should be able to exhibit these reasoning
patterns. However, research studies have shown that many students have not developed
these reasoning abilities. These may, in fact, be aspirations and goals of science education,
rather than descriptions of student's cognitive functions.

The scientific reasoning patterns at the formal operations level are shown in Figure 2.26. At
this stage of development students are capable of organizing information and analyzing
problems in ways that are impossible for a student at the concrete operations stage.

Figure 2.26. Formal Reasoning Patterns

Formal Reasoning Patterns Explanation and Examples

Theoretical Reasoning Applying multiple classification, conservation

logic, serial ordering, and other reasoning
patterns to relationships and properties that
are not directly observable. Examples:
distinguishing between oxidation and
reduction reactions, using the energy
conservation principle, arranging lower and
higher plants in an evolutionary sequence,
making inferences from theory according to
which the earth's crust consists of rigid
plates, accepting a hypothesis for the sake
of argument.

Combinatorial Reasoning The student considers all conceivable

combinations of tangible or abstract items.
Examples: systematically enumerating the
 genotypes and phenotypes with respect to
characteristics.

Proportional Reasoning Stating and interpreting functional

relationships in mathematical form.
Examples: the rate of diffusion of a molecule
is inversely proportional to the square root
of its molecular weight; the rate of
radioactive decay is directly proportional to
its half-life.

Control of Variables The student recognizes the necessity of an

experimental design that controls all
variables but the one being investigated.
Examples: When designing experiments to
find out what factors affect swing of a
pendulum, students will hold one variable
constant (e.g. if investigating mass, the
length will remain the same).

Probabilistic and Correlational Reasoning Interpreting observations that show

unpredictable variability and recognizing
relationships among variables in spite of
random variations that mask them. Examples:
In the Mealworm Puzzle (see ahead),
recognizing that a small number of specimen
showing exceptional behavior need not
invalidate the principle conclusion.