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Piaget's theory of cognitive development

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Jean Piaget believed children think in a different way from adults, and that their thinking develops through four stages in a fixed order.

Schemas and how they change

A schema (plural schemas or schemata) is a mental structure that holds our knowledge about something, for example a 'dog' schema.
Assimilation: fitting new information into an existing schema (a child sees a new breed of dog and still calls it a dog).
Accommodation: changing a schema, or making a new one, when new information does not fit (a child calls a cat a dog, is corrected, and makes a 'cat' schema).
Equilibrium: a balanced state where our schemas match the world. When new information does not fit, we feel disequilibrium, which pushes us to learn until balance returns.

The four stages

Children pass through the stages in the same order, at roughly these ages.

Strengths and weaknesses

Strengths: supported by studies such as the three mountains task, which showed young children are egocentric. It has been very useful in education: it suggests children should learn by discovery and be taught tasks they are ready for.
Weaknesses: later research suggests Piaget underestimated young children. When tasks make more sense to them, children can succeed earlier: in Hughes' (1975) policeman doll study many children aged 3.5 to 5 could take another viewpoint. The stages may be too fixed, and the theory says little about the role of other people and culture in learning.
Worked example

A child of 3 sees a zebra for the first time and calls it a horse. Which process is this, and what will happen when she is corrected?

  1. She fits the zebra into her existing horse schema: assimilation.
  2. When told it is a zebra, she changes her schema or makes a new one: accommodation.
  3. Her schemas then match the world again: equilibrium.

Answer: Assimilation at first; then accommodation when corrected, which restores equilibrium.

Key idea

Piaget said children build schemas through assimilation and accommodation, aiming for equilibrium. They pass through four stages in order: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational and formal operational. The theory shaped education but may underestimate young children.

The interactive lesson includes the diagrams for this topic.

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