Victoria Roldan

9/26/20

EDI 600

Short Assignment #1

Piaget’s theory of cognitive development and Vygotsky's Sociocultural Development

Theory can be compared in various ways. First, looking at Piaget’s theory of cognitive

development it is evident that the range of individuals it addresses is all the way from birth to

adulthood. ​This theory is a discontinuous model because it defines development in terms of

stages. When it comes to the nature vs. nurture issue, Piaget accepted that both come into play

when it comes to cognitive development, For example, he understood that there is an innate

nature to the development of thought and cognition, however understanding and building on

children’s thinking as well as actively engaging students in concrete experiences contributes to

their cognitive development as well.

According to Piaget, activity such as individually exploring, testing, observing, and

eventually organizing information is what stimulates our cognitive development. He claimed that

his theory was universal, however this is one of the critiques for this theory. DIfferent cultures

vary in the way they raise children and in turn affects their developmental stages. Culture is an

important aspect to take into consideration when it comes to cognitive development. Some

special terminology that applies to Piaget would be Seriation which is the process of making an

arrangement of items in order from large to small or vice versa, classification which is the ability

to focus on a single characteristic of objects in a set (e.g., color) and group the objects

according to that characteristic, concrete operations which is used to describe the stage of
“hands-on” thinking and sensorimotor which is the stage that the child’s thinking involves

seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, moving and so on.

On the other hand, Vygotsky's Sociocultural Development Theory places emphasis on

the role of cultural and social interactions rather than individual explorations. Vygotsky claimed

that “All the higher functions originate as actual relations between human individuals.”

(Woolfolk). This theory is a continuous theory claiming that throughout a child’s life they

continuously learn through social interaction. Similarly to Piaget, Vygotsky believed that both

nature and nurture contribute to child development however emphasized the role of nurture

through learning and development. He believed more in the importance that teachers and

parents had on a child’s development rather than learning from their peers. Vygotsky held a

strong emphasis on culture in contrast from Piaget. He believed that differences in culture are

the reason for individual differences in children.

According to Vygotsky, learning through social interaction once they have developed

language is what stimulates cognitive development. He emphasizes the importance of learning

through someone who is more skilled than you are rather than your peers. Vygotsky believed

that development is culturally specific due to the fact that one’s cultural differences play a large

role in their development. He believed that human activities take place in cultural settings and

that they cannot be understood apart from these settings. Some special terminology that applies

to Vygotsky would be scaffolding which is when a teacher or more advanced peer helps to

structure or arrange a task so that a novice can work on it successfully, mediation which is when

adults and children interact with each other, children learn the culturally appropriate ways to

interact with the world, and internalization which is the process through which social activities

evolve into mental activities.

 Work Cited

Woolfolk, A. (2019). Educational Psychology. 14th edition.