"Nobody before Piaget thought that children believe, when water is poured from one glass to another taller and thinner one, that there is more to drink than before."
Hermina Sinclair, University of Geneva
Criticism of Piaget's Work
Before answering the research question, it's important to know the other side of the theory.
Piaget’s four stages of cognitive development have faced backlash over the years, as modern developmentalists have found experimental research that contradicts certain aspects of Piaget’s theory. For example, research has found that the phenomenon of conservation occurs as a slow, progressive change, instead of a sudden change in cognitive capacities. Other research has shown that differently aged children develop through a continuum of capacities instead of discrete stages. Additionally, these researchers believe that Piaget’s theories undermine children in certain aspects, for instance, younger children may be able to perform tasks to the same degree as older ones. They’ve also found that children are not as concrete, egocentric, or suggestible as Piaget made them out to be, and that biological as well as cultural influences should be taken into consideration for cognitive development. Piaget himself has noted that development does not necessarily always progress in the smooth way his theory seems to depict it to.
Nevertheless, Piaget’s stage model still provides a useful approximation of the psychological state of children, and it accurately separates the mind of a child from that of an adult, which was his biggest revolutionary find.
So.. How did Jean Piaget’s ‘Cognitive Development Theory’ revolutionize educational psychology?
It's simple, really.
Jean Piaget's theory has completely altered the way we view our children, being one of the first to figure out that children are no less intelligent than adults, they just think differently.
Through his theory, Piaget concluded that intelligence develops through a series of stages, and that there are both qualitative and quantitative differences in the way young versus older children think. He also concluded that children see the world differently, and that they actively build up knowledge based on their own experiences. They are not passive creatures to be treated as a vessel. While earlier researchers had often viewed children simply as smaller versions of adults, Piaget’s theories showed that childhood is a unique and integral part of human development.
This has shaped educational psychology today, in which children are no longer looked upon as mini, imperfect adults. They are now viewed as constructive cognitive beings who have their own theories about the world, theories that alter and grow as the child develops. Because of Piaget’s theories, there was a reevaluation of older perceptions on the ways of the child, of learning, of education. If there were stages that determine when certain thought processes were developed, that simple reinforcement was not enough for children to grasp concepts; the child must be mentally developed and at the proper cognitive stage to assimilate and accommodate the new concepts. Therefore, the teacher became not a transmitter of knowledge but a guide to push the children into discovering more of the world.
Here are some impacts that prove the scope of Piaget’s revolutionary find:
A couple of decades after the theory was first published, educational methods and classroom curricula faced a reform. The concept of progressive education started its course, putting emphasis on a student’s development instead of forcing the 3Rs down their throat. High Schools started to offer electives such as photography, botany, or cooking, prioritizing the students’ interests (something Piaget’s theory supports).
His theories continue to be studied in areas of psychology, sociology, education, and genetics, having contributed massively to the study of human development.
Piaget’s beliefs massively influenced curricular reforms of mathematics and science education (Copeland 1970; Cambon 1977; Kubli 1981; Kamii and DeClark 1985; Aikenhead 1996; Bryant 1996). Since 1960, the operative principle has become a main approach in the didactics of mathematics (Fricke 1959; Wittmann 1982).
Using Piaget’s theories, parents can determine how to support their child’s growth, and teachers can decide whether their lessons are suitable for their students. His work also influenced other well-known psychologists including Howard Gardner and Robert Sternberg.
In 1967, the UK government used his theory to develop the educational policy and teaching practice that is largely used in teaching and learning today. Access the Plowden Report here.
The Westfield Infants School in Leicestershire is one of the schools that structured their lessons around spontaneous and pupil-directed learning, with the help of concrete material.
His work, which provides a detailed look at how children create knowledge, has been a primary influence in preschool programs in the United States since the 1970s.
Student-centric classrooms and “open education” are direct applications of Piaget’s views.
Repeated pedagogical studies were made based on Piaget’s psychology in terms of education (Aebli 1951; Sigel 1969; Gorman 1972; Charles 1974; Lowery 1974; Sprinthall and Sprinthall 1974; Sund 1976; Fuller 1977; Labinowicz 1980; Kubli 1983; DeLisi and Goldbeck 1999; Jardine 2006)
The Early Childhood Curriculum (Lavatelli 1970) in Illinois and Missouri attempted to promote concrete operations through concrete materials.
David Weikart developed the Perry Preschool Project in Ypsilanti, Michigan, and the Cognitevely Oriented Curriculum, which served as the model of the Head Start Planned Variation Study (Weikart, Rogers, Adcock and McClelland 1971).
The Piagetian Preschool Education Program (Bingham-Newman, Saunders and Hooper 1976) was a program made to foster operations like seriation or classification in small groups.
Rheta DeVries and Constance Kamii created a program where a child is given free choice of activity in a wide range of offered games and experiments, culminating in three books.
Piaget’s principles were applied in science subjects leading to the syllabi Science 5–13 in the UK, the Australian Science Education Project and the Science Curriculum Improvement Study in the USA (Mackay 1983).
In over 50 books and monographs, Piaget continued to develop the concept he first fell in love with in Paris, that the mind of the child grows and evolves through a series of set stages, and now, he has revolutionized the way the world looks upon children, approaches their mental growth, and the way they are educated. It is now commonplace for education to respect children’s theories and competencies as Piaget has shown that this is the most effective means of keeping the children self-engaged in the acquisition of knowledge.
Through the application of a creative process,
Piaget has managed to revolutionize the way children are taught, and what they are taught.