MODULE 3 3. Accommodation is the process of creating a new schema.
If
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive
Development
“The principal goal of Education is to create men who are
capable of doing new things, not simply repeating what other
generations have done- men who are creative, inventive and
discovers.”
Juan Piaget
Jean Piaget’s cognitive theory of Development is truly a
classic in the field of educational psychology. This theory fuelled
other researches and theories of development and learning. Its
focus is on how individuals construct knowledge.
Piagetian Tasks
For sixty years, Jean Piaget conducted research on cognitive
development. His research method involved observing small
number of individuals as they responded to cognitive tasks that
he designed. These tasks were later known as Piagetian Tasks.
Piaget called his general theoretical framework “General
Epistemology” because he was interested in how knowledge
developed in human organisms.
Piaget was initially into biology and he also had a background in
Philosophy.
Knowledge from both these disciplines influence his theories and
research of child development. Out of his researches, Piaget
came up with the stages of cognitive development.
Piaget examined the implications of his theory not only to aspects
of cognition but also to intelligence and moral development. His
theory has been applied widely to teaching and curriculum design
especially in the preschool and elementary curricula.
Basic Cognitive Concepts
1. Schema refers to the cognitive structures by which individuals
intellectually adapt to and organize their environment. It is the
individual way to understand or create about a thing or
experience.
“it is like a filing cabinet and each drawer has folders that
contain files of things he has had an experience with”
Example of Schema…
“ If a child sees a dog for the first time, he creates his own
schema of what the dog is. It has 4 legs and a tail. It barks. It
flurry. The child then “ puts this description of a dog “on file” in his
mind. When he sees another similar dog, he pulls out the files in
his mind, looks at the animal, and says “ four legs, tails, barks,
furry… that’s a dog!!”
2. Assimilation is the process of fitting a new experience into an
existing or previously created cognitive structure or schema.
Example:
If the child sees another dog, this time a little smaller
one, he would make sense of what he is seeing by adding this
new information (a different-looking dog) into his schema of a
dog.
the same child now sees another animal that looks a little bit like
a dog, but somehow different. He might try to fit it into his schema
of a dog, and say, “Look mommy, what a funny looking dog. Its
bark is funny too!” Then the mommy explains, “That’s not a funny
looking dog. That’s a goat!” With mommy’s further descriptions,
the child will now create new schema, that of a goat. He now
adds a new file in his cabinet.
4. Equilibration is achieving proper balance between
assimilation and accommodation. When our experiences do not
match our schema (plural of schema) or cognitive structures, we
experience cognitive disequilibrium. This means there is a
discrepancy between what is perceived and what is understood.
We then exert effort through assimilation and accommodation to
establish equilibrium once more.
Piaget believed that people have the natural need to
understand how the world works and to find order, structure, and
predictability in their life.
Cognitive Development involves a continuous effort to
adapt to the environment in terms of assimilation and
accommodation. In this sense, Piaget’s theory is similar in nature
to other constructivist perspectives of learning like Bruner and
Vygotsky.
Piaget’s Stages of Cognitive Development
Stage 1. Sensori-motor Stage
Stage 2. Pre-Operational Stage
Stage 3. Concrete Operational Stage
Stage 4. Formal Operational Stages
1. Sensori-motor Stage
The first stage corresponds from birth to
infancy. This is the stage when a child who is initially
reflexive in grasping, sucking and reaching becomes
more organized in his movement and activity.
The term sensori-motor focuses on the
prominence of the senses and muscle movement
through which the infant comes to learn about himself
and the world.
In working with children in the sensori-motor
stage, teachers should aim to provide a rich and
stimulating environment with appropriate objects to play
with.
Object Permanence
This is the ability of the child to know that an objects still
exists even when out of sight. This ability is attained in the
sensory motor stage.
2. Pre-Operational Stage
 The preoperational stage covers from about
two to seven years old, roughly corresponding to the
preschool years.
Intelligence at this stage is intuitive in nature.
At this stage, the child can now make mental
representations and is able to pretend, the child is now
ever closer to the use of symbols.
Symbolic Function
This is the ability to represent objects and events. A
symbol is a thing that represent objects and events. A symbol is a
thing that represents something else.
A drawing, written word, or a spoken word comes to be
understood as representing a real object like a real MRT train.
Symbolic Function gradually develops in the period between 2 to
7 years.
Examples:
4 years old – Nico may after pretending to drink from an empty
glass, turns the glass into a rocket ship or telephone
6-7 years old – the child can pretend play with objects that exist
only in the mind. Enzo who is six, can do a whole ninja turtle
routine without any costume nor “props”. Tria who is 7 can
pretend to host an elaborate princess ball only in her mind.
Egocentrism
This is the tendency of the child to only see his point of
view and to assume that everyone also has his same point of
view.
The child cannot take the perspective of others. You see
this in five year-old boy who buys a toy truck for his mother’s
birthday. Or a three year old girl who cannot understand why her
cousins call her daddy, uncle and not daddy.
Centration
This refers to the tendency of the child to only focus on
one aspect of a thing or event and exclude others aspect.
Example:
When a child is presented with two identical
glasses with the same amount of water, The child will
say they have the same amount of water. However,
once water from one of the glasses is transferred to an
obviously taller but narrower glass, the child might say
that there is more water in the taller glass.
The child only focused or “centered” only one
aspect of the new glass, that it is a taller glass. The child
was not able to perceive that the new glass is also
narrower. The child only centered on the height of the
glass and excluded the width in determining the amount
of water in the glass.
Reversibility
Pre-operational children still has the inability to reverse
their thinking. They can understand that 2 + 3 is 5, but cannot
understand that 5-3 is 2.
Animism
This is the tendency of children to attribute human like
traits or characteristics to inanimate objects. When at night, the
child is asked, where the sun is, she will reply, “Mr. Sun is
asleep”.
Transductive Reasoning
This refers to the pre-operational child’s type of
reasoning that is neither inductive nor deductive. Reasoning
appears to be from particular to particular.
Examples:
If A causes B, then B causes A.
Example:
Since her mommy comes home everyday around six o’
clock in the evening, when asked why it is already night, the child
will say, “because my mom is already home”.
3. Concrete-Operational Stage
This stage is characterized by the ability of the child to
think logically but only in terms of concrete objects. This covers
approximately the ages between 8-11 years or the elementary
school years.
Decentering
This refers to the ability of the child to perceive the
different features of objects and situations. No longer is the child
focused or limited to one aspect or dimension. This allows the
child to be more logical when dealing with concrete objects and
situations.
Reversibility
During the stage of concrete operations, the child can
now follow that certain operations can be done in reverse.
For example:
 They can already comprehend the commutative property
of addition, and that subtraction is reverse of addition.
They can also understand that a ball of clay shaped into
a dinosaur can again be rolled back into ball of clay.
Conservation
3. Learning materials and activities should involve the
appropriate level of motor or mental operations for a
child of given age; avoid asking students to perform
tasks that are beyond their current cognitive capabilities.
4. Use teaching methods that actively involve students and
present challenges.

This is the ability to know that certain properties of END OF MODULE 3

objects like number, mass, volume, or area do not change even if
there is a change in appearance.

Example: 1 kilogram of cotton is the same with 1 kilogram of

nails.

Seration
This refers to the ability to order or arrange things in a
series based on one dimension such as weight, volume or size.

4. Formal Operational Stage

In the final stage of formal operations covering ages

between 12 and 15 years, thinking becomes more logical.
They can now solve abstract problems and can hypothesize.

Hypothetical Reasoning

This is the ability to come up with different hypothesis

about a problem and to gather and weigh data in order to make a
final decision or judgement. This can be done in the absence of
concrete objects. The individuals can now deal with “what if”
questions.

Analogical Reasoning

This is the ability to perceive the relationship in one

instance and then use that relationships to narrow down possible
answers in another similar situation or problem. The individual in
the formal operations stage can make an analogy.

Ex: If UK is to Europe, then Philippines is to ________.

Through reflective thought and even in the absence of

concrete objects. The individual can now understand
relationships and do analogical reasoning.

Deductive Reasoning

This is the ability to think logically by applying a general

rule to a particular instance or situation.

Ex: All countries near the north pole have cold temperatures.
Greenland is near in North Pole. Therefore, Greenland has cold
temperature.

From Piaget’s findings and comprehensive theory, we can

derive the following principles:

1. Children will provide different explanations of reality at

different stages of cognitive development.
2. Cognitive Development is facilitated by providing
activities or situations that engage learners and require
adaptation.(Assimilation and Accommodation)