LEARN · PRACTISE · DISCOVER
Piaget’s Theory of Cognitive Development
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LEARN · PRACTISE · DISCOVER
Join to unlock this lesson and the full course library, or log in if you are already a member.
LEARN · PRACTISE · DISCOVER
Jean Piaget (1896–1980), a Swiss psychologist, is the most frequently tested theorist in teacher eligibility tests. By carefully observing children, including his own, he showed that children actively construct knowledge and think in qualitatively different ways at different stages. This lesson explains his key concepts, the four stages and what they mean for primary teaching.
| Concept | Meaning | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Schema (scheme) | an organised pattern of thought or action used to understand the world | a child’s “dog” schema: four legs, fur, barks |
| Assimilation | fitting new information into an existing schema | calling a cow a “big dog” |
| Accommodation | changing a schema or creating a new one to fit new information | learning that a cow is different from a dog, forming a new “cow” schema |
| Equilibration | the drive to balance assimilation and accommodation; disequilibrium (confusion) motivates learning | resolving confusion when an idea does not fit |
| Adaptation | adjusting to the environment through assimilation and accommodation | |
| Organisation | combining schemas into more complex systems |
Assimilation = Add to an existing schema. Accommodation = Alter the schema.
Piaget saw the child as a little scientist who actively explores, experiments and builds understanding. This makes him a key figure of constructivism.
| Stage | Approximate age | Key features |
|---|---|---|
| Sensorimotor | birth–2 years | learning through senses and actions; object permanence develops; goal-directed behaviour; beginnings of symbolic thought |
| Pre-operational | 2–7 years | language and symbolic play grow; egocentrism; animism; centration; irreversibility; lack of conservation |
| Concrete operational | 7–11 years | logical thinking about concrete objects; conservation; reversibility; classification; seriation; decentration |
| Formal operational | 11 years onwards | abstract and hypothetical-deductive reasoning; systematic problem solving; propositional thought |
Piaget believed the order of stages is fixed, although ages vary between children.
Object permanence is understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen. A young baby stops searching for a toy hidden under a cloth; an older infant lifts the cloth to find it.
Pre-operational is divided into the symbolic function sub-stage (about 2–4 years) and the intuitive thought sub-stage (about 4–7 years).
Conservation is understanding that quantity stays the same despite changes in shape or arrangement. Water poured from a short wide glass into a tall thin glass is still the same amount. Children usually master conservation of number first and volume last. Reversibility (mentally undoing an action), classification (grouping by properties) and seriation (arranging in order, for example by length) also develop.
Adolescents can reason about hypotheses (“What would happen if…?”) and abstract ideas such as justice, and solve problems systematically, as in Piaget’s pendulum task.
Later research suggests Piaget sometimes underestimated young children’s abilities, and that development may be more continuous and more influenced by culture and social interaction than he proposed. This is where Vygotsky’s ideas add an important perspective.
A Class 2 child says a row of 5 spread-out buttons has “more” than a row of 5 buttons placed close together. This shows lack of number conservation, typical of the pre-operational stage. The teacher lets the child count both rows and move the buttons back and forth, building understanding through concrete experience rather than simply correcting the answer.