Overview
My case subject is Regina Holms, a second grader, from County Elementary School. Before I interviewed the subject, I received permission for her guardian. During the interview, Regina and I conversed while working on one of the seven Piagetian tasks, the volume task. During this task, Regina’s stage of development was determined.
I chose the volume task, where she had to recognize if two different size glasses held the same amount of water in each glass. Moreover, we are focusing on intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, types of anxiety and self-handicapping; in order to observe her motivation during this task. In order to further evaluate, I asked her older sibling Wendy, a seventh grader to observe motivation. We will also be focusing on personal and social development, where we will be focusing on personality and temperament and her peer relationship with her sister.
Cognitive Development (Piagetian Stages of Development)
Jean Piaget’s Four Stages of Cognitive Development determines how children from birth to adulthood use their intelligence or cognitive development while engaging in tasks. The first stage of cognitive development is called the Sensorimotor Stage (birth to age 2). During this stage, children tend to learn by “trial and error”, objects exist even if they are removed from sight, and symbols are introduced (Ormrod, 2012, 149).
The second stage of cognitive development is Preoperational Stage (age 2 to age 7). During this stage, children’s “vocabulary and grammatical structures rapidly develops” (Ormrod, 2012, 149), and children uses their “intuition rather than on conscious awareness of logical principles” (Ormrod, 2012, 149).
The third stage of cognitive development is Concrete Operations Sta...
... middle of paper ...
...ir adolescents, while girls focus on their physical appearance and peer relationships. I am in constant contact with Regina, and I have displayed her desire to “fit in”. Because of her desire to socially fit, I knew having her sister sit in during the interview would motivate Regina to take the interview seriously and try to perform well. By performing a simple task, I was able to determine that Regina is in the concrete operations stage of cognitive development. In addition, I found that Regina has a healthy self-concept, self-efficacy, and self-esteem for her age group. Yes, peer relationships has slightly affected Regina’s performance; however, she used extrinsic motivation to accomplish her goal.
Works Cited
Ormrod, J. E. (2012). Essentials of educational psychology: Big ideas to guide effective teaching, 3rd, ed. Boston, MA: Pearson Education, Inc.
Throughout these activities and questions Kimora is within the stage she should be according to Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development. She is nine-years- old and falls in the category of Concrete Operational both by Piaget’s standards and the tests performed throughout this case study.
Piaget has played an important part in helping people understand more about children and the process of a child’s cognitive development. Throughout this lab report, there will be questions asked of two young children. The first child’s name is Makayla. She is 9 years old and has just started fourth grade. The first Piagetian task that was given to the children is referred to as the conservation of mass task. During this task, the children rolled two equal amounts of play dough into two separate balls. Afterward, Makayla was asked if these two separate balls had the same amount of play dough. She responded yes, because they came from the same container so they are the same amounts. The children were then asked to roll one ball of play dough into a snake. Afterward, Makayla was asked if the ball and the snake had the same amount of play dough. She replied yes, because its all still from the same size container so they are the same amounts. The second task that was asked of the
• Describe how a child’s mind develops according to Piaget. Include a description of the four stages and the developmental phenomenon that accompany each stage.
Acknowledged by Muuss (1967) was the fact that age norms described within stages are approximations, and how such ideas could provide guidance and insight into a child’s learning limitations and abilities. Evidence to suggest that this knowledge can help to address limitations in child cognitive development exists (Ojemann & Pritchett, 1963; as cited in Muuss, 1967). Even so, these proposals are not noticeably grounded by concrete
Piaget strove to identify how children adapt to their environment. He noticed skills in a child that reinforced
The stages are sensorimotor stage (birth to age two (2)), pre- operational stage (from two (2) to age seven (7)), concrete operational stage (from age (7) to age (11)), and formal operational stage (age eleven (11) to adulthood). The subject’s current cognitive stage is concrete operational. The concrete operational stage of development is the begin of thought processes. During this stage of development a child can use logical thought or operations (i.e. rules) but can only apply logic to physical objects (hence concrete operational) (McLeod). In other words, during this stage, a child will gain a better understanding of mental operations. Logical thinking of concrete events and objects begins at this stage. Conversely, difficulty with abstract thinking and concepts will
Piaget proposed that cognitive development from infant to young adult occurs in four universal and consecutive stages: sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operations, and formal operations (Woolfolk, A., 2004). Between the ages of zero and two years of age, the child is in the sensorimotor stage. It is during this stage the child experiences his or her own world through the senses and through movement. During the latter part of the sensorimotor stage, the child develops object permanence, which is an understanding that an object exists even if it is not within the field of vision (Woolfolk, A., 2004). The child also begins to understand that his or her actions could cause another action, for example, kicking a mobile to make the mobile move. This is an example of goal-directed behavior. Children in the sensorimotor stage can reverse actions, but cannot yet reverse thinking (Woolfolk, A., 2004).
The cognitive aspect utilizes Piaget’s theory of development. Piaget’s theory includes four stages: The Sensorimotor Stage, The Preoperational Stage, The Concrete Operational Stage, and The Formal Operational Stage (Siegler et al.,135). For children, ages 0 to 6, the stages focused on are the sensorimotor and preoperational stages. Piaget’s focus was on nature and nurture to encourage cognitive development. Nurturing is the everyday interactions that a child experiences not only with parents but with other children and community members. Nature is a child’s biological development and their ability to learn and make perceptions of the world around
Snowman, J, McGowan, R, & Biehler, R. (2009). Psychology applied to teaching. New York: Houghton Mifflin.
...a number of years before reaching the concrete operation stage of development, which is triggered at age seven and older when a child’s thinking is no longer dominated by appearance. Additionally, as part of the concrete operational stage, logic and reasoning and the ability to sort objects into classes is present as well as conservation. From part one it was apparent that N.G. didn’t possess conservation which leads to my confirmation that she should be categorized as a preoperational stage child.
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development describes his belief that children try to actively make sense of the world rather than simply absorbing knowledge as previously thought. Piaget’s theory claims that as children grow and develop they experience four different cognitive stages of life. As a child grows through each stage they not only learn new information but the way he or she thinks also changes. “In other words, each new stage represents a fundamental shift in how the child thinks and understands the world” (Hockenbury, page 368).The first stage of Piaget’s theory, known as the sensorimotor stage, begins at birth and continues on until about age 2. As the name suggest, this stage is when children begin to discover
LeFrancois, G. R. (1999) Psychology for Teaching. (10th ed.) University of Alberta Wadsworth: Thomson Learning.
He developed his own laboratory and spent years recording children’s intellectual growth. Jean wanted to find out how children develop through various stages of thinking. This led to the development of Piaget four important stages of cognitive development: sensorimotor stage (birth to age two), preoperational stage (age two to seven), concrete-operational stage (ages seven to twelve), and formal-operational stage (ages eleven to twelve, and thereafter).
“{No theory of cognitive development has had more impact than the cognitive stages presented by Jean Piaget. Piaget, a Swiss psychologist, suggested that children go through four separate stages in a fixed order that is universal in all children. Piaget declared that these stages differ not only in the quantity of information acquired at each, but also in the quality of knowledge and understanding at that stage. Piaget suggested that movement from one stage to the next occurred when the child reached an appropriate level of maturation and was exposed to relevant types of experiences. Without experience, children were assumed incapable of reaching their highest cognitive ability. Piaget's four stages are known as the sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational stages.
Duchesne, S., McMaugh, A. Bochner, S, and Krause, K. (2013) Educational Psychology for Learning and Teaching. 4th Edition. South Melbourne: Cengage Learning.