Reflections on 25 Years of Piagetian Cognitive Developmental Psychology, 1963–1988

Abstract

In this article some of the issues are examined that have arisen in one quarter of a century of intensive research on cognitive development from a Piagetian perspective. It is suggested that there is no evidence clearly confirming the existence of Piaget’s cognitive structures in explicit form. Consequently, neo-Piagetian theories have proliferated, in an attempt to conceptualize the increasingly powerful cognitive systems that have been observed to develop with age. Research on the object concept indicates that children have knowledge and skills that would not have been predicted by the Piagetian position, but that children progressively develop an integrated conception of space that is consistent with some of Piaget’s basic tenets. Some of the major studies purportedly demonstrating understanding of concrete operational concepts by 3- and 4-year-olds are shown to be based on false positives. There is rigorous evidence of hypothesis testing in middle childhood, but this performance does not necessarily entail formal operations as defined by Inhelder and Piaget. It is concluded that Piaget’s empirical work has held up better than is often thought but that his conceptualization of cognitive development is inadequate. Consequently, it is suggested, empirical researchers should devote more attention to testing alternative theories.

Matching Traffic Safety Strategies to Youth Characteristics: A Literature Review of Cognitive Development

“…Empirical evidence appears to support Piaget's basic descriptions of the stages of cognitive development (Elkind & Flavell, 1969;Halford, 1989aHalford, , 1989bNeimark, 1975Neimark, , 1979Pascual-Leone, 1989b;Sigel & Hooper, 1968). For example, Elkind and Flavell (1969) and Sigel and Hooper (1968), reported on replication studies of Piaget's work that confirmed the occurrence of most of the phenomena he reported.…”

“…For example, Elkind and Flavell (1969) and Sigel and Hooper (1968), reported on replication studies of Piaget's work that confirmed the occurrence of most of the phenomena he reported. Similarly, Halford (1989a), in reflecting on 25 years of Piaget's work, found that Piaget's empirical work has held up reasonably well and Neimark (1975) concluded that the earlier findings of Piaget appear to be clearly replicable and that his stages of development provide an accurate description of a vast amount of data.…”

“…Halford (1989a), for example, noted that there is opposition to Piaget's structural explanation for stage differences. Others, investigating the ages at which certain cognitive behaviors appear, contend that Piaget underestimated children's understanding, particularly young children's operational competency.…”

Comfort Zone: Model or metaphor?

“…As Halford (1989) points out even within cognitive psychology there are competing theories of cognitive development and Zohar and Aharon-Kravetsky (2005) argue that whilst the promotion of cognitive conflict is a significant instructional method there is still inconclusive evidence regarding the effectiveness of this strategy.…”

Conceito e funções dos esquemas cognitivos para a aprendizagem implicações para o ensino

“…são generalizáveis (Battro, 1978). Entretanto, dando que, segundo a teoria de Piaget, somente pode ser aprendido o que for assimilável a uma estrutura pré-existente, pode-se razoavelmente concluir que o conceito piagetiano de estruturas seja uma antecipação da atual teoria de esquemas, de que trata o presente trabalho (Halford, 1989; Pascual-Leone, 19891. Por outro lado, em psicologia também se emprega o termo esquema quando se trata de representação mental ou imagem simplificada de um objeto.…”