General Psychology:

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

“What a child can do today with assistance, she will be able to do

by herself tomorrow”
- Lev Vygotsky
 Introduction
• The major theme of Vygotsky’s theoretical framework is that social
interaction plays a fundamental role in the development of cognition.

• Sociocultural theory focuses not only how adults and peers influence
individual learning, but also on how cultural beliefs and attitudes impact
how instruction and learning take place.

• According to Vygotsky, much important learning by the child occurs

through social interaction with a skillful tutor. The tutor may model
behaviors and / or provide verbal instructions for the child. Vygotsky
refers to this as cooperative or collaboration dialogue.

• In Piaget’s theory, he emphasized self-initiated discovery or self-

exploration or play, while in Vygotsky’s theory, he focuses on social
contributions to learning and development.
 Piaget vs. Vygotsky: Key Differences

1. Vygotsky placed greater emphasis on how social

factors influences, while Piaget’s theory stressed
how a child’s interactions and independent
explorations influenced development.
2. Piaget’s theory suggested that the development
is largely universal among children in the world
despite of the culture. Vygotsky, on the other
hand, suggested that cognitive development can
differ between different cultures.
(1) More Knowledgeable Other (MKO)
• MKO refers to someone who has a better
understanding or a higher ability level than the
learner, with respect to a particular task,
process, or concept.
• MKO can be a teacher or an old adult, but this is
not necessarily the case.
• The key with MKO is that they must have (or
programmed with)more knowledge about the
topic being learned that the learner does.
 (2) Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

• Vygotsky sees the Zone of Proximal Development as the area where the
most sensitive instruction or guidance should be given – allowing the child
to develop skills they will then use on their own.

• In ZPD, skills that are too difficult for a child to master on his/her own, can
be done with guidance and encouragement from a knowledgeable person.

• He suggested that teachers use cooperative learning exercises – where less

competent children developed with help from more skillful peers.

• For example (Shaffer, 1996), A child could not solve jigsaw puzzle by itself
and would have been taken a long time to do so, but was able to solve it
following interaction with the father, and has developed competence at this
skills that will be applied to future jigsaws.
 (1) Vygotsky’s Principle of Language
• He believes that language develops from social
interactions, for communication processes. He viewed
language as man’s greatest tool, a means of
communicating with the outside world.
• According to Vygotsky (1962), Language plays 2 critical
important roles in cognitive development
1. It is the main means by with adults transmits
information to children.
2. Language itself becomes a very powerful tool of
intellectual adaptation.
Evidence of Vygotsky and the ZPD
• Freund (1990) conducted a study in which children had to
decide which items of furniture should be placed in particular
areas of a dolls house. Some children were allowed to play
with their mother in a similar situation before them
attempted it alone (ZPD), whilst others were allowed to work
on his by themselves (Piaget’s discovery theory).
• Freund found out that those who had preiously worked with
their mother (ZPD) showed greatest improvement compared
with their first attempt at the task.
• The conclusion being that guided learning within the concept
of ZPD led to greater understanding/performance than
working alone (discovery learning)
 Critical Evaluation
• Vygotsky’s work has not received the same level of intense scrutiny that
Piaget’s has, partly due to the time consuming process of translating
Vygotsky’s work from Russian.

• Perhaps, the main criticism of Vygotsky’s work concerns the assumption that it
is relevant to all culture. A research of Roggoff (1990) dismisses that Vygotsky’s
ideas are culturally universal, and instead states that the concept of scaffolding
– which is heavily dependent on verbal instruction – may not be equally
useful in all cultures of all types of learning, in some instances observation and
practice may be more effective ways of learning certain skills.

• Scaffolding – is the support given during the learning process which is tailored
to the needs of the student with the intention of helping the student achieve
his/ her learning goals (Sawyer, 2006) Examples are feedback, giving hints,
explaining, instructing, modeling, questioning.