Module 1 - Vygotsky Vs. Piaget (Kirsten Zinzer)

Vygotsky Vs. Piaget

While I was reading Chapters 1-3 in the Woolfolk text, I enjoyed reading Chapter 2 about Lev Vygotsky and Jean Piaget.  Vygotsky and Piaget were pioneers in their work with child development.  They both had their own theories relating to cognitive development within a child; and their theories were very different from one another. Who’s your guy?  Vygotsky or Piaget?  Whose theory is better?  

I appreciate each of their standpoints as it relates to cognitive development within a child, but realize their theories are very different.  I’ll highlight a few of their differences below.

Vygotsky's theory is that the role of social interaction is key when it comes to cognitive development.  He believed strongly that community plays a central role in the process of learning.  Piaget believed that cognitive development is a process that occurs due to biological maturation and interaction with the environment. 

One main difference between the two is that Vygotsky places more emphasis on culture affecting cognitive development whereas Piaget's view is made up of four stages.  Piaget's theory of cognitive development suggests that children move through four different stages of mental development. His theory focuses not only on understanding how children acquire knowledge, but also on understanding the nature of intelligence.  His studies examine how intelligence is something that grows and develops through a series of stages.  Piaget’s four stages are: Sensorimotor, Preoperational, Concrete Operational and Formal Operational (Woolfolk, Chapter 2, p. 47).  Piaget believed that children took at active role in the learning process, acting much like little scientists as they perform experiments, make observations, and learn about the world (Woolfolk, Chapter 2, p. 46).  Piaget’s belief is that cognitive development stems largely from independent explorations where children construct knowledge of their own.  There has been criticism of Piaget’s theory that it overlooks the important effects of the child’s cultural and social group.

The other side of the coin is Vygotsky.  He was a firm believer that social factors contribute to cognitive development.  One of his key theories is that our specific mental structures and processes can be traced to our interactions with others.  Our social interactions create our thinking processes and cognitive structures. (Woolfolk, Chapter 2, p. 57).  Vygotsky’s theory focused on cultural differences and the effect that these differences can have.  For example, the development of children who are in one culture or subculture, like middle class Asian Americans, may be totally different from children who come from other a lower-class African American culture.  As a result, it wouldn’t make sense to apply the developmental experiences of children from one culture as a norm for children from other cultures. 

One of Vygotsky’s main contributions to educational psychology was the Zone of Proximal Development.  This concept pertains to how children learn.  Children who are in the zone of proximal development for a specific task can almost perform the task independently, but are not quite there yet. However, with an appropriate amount of assistance, these children can accomplish the task successfully.  The zone of proximal development is definitely helpful to teachers to adjust classroom lessons, assignments and instruction to best help a student succeed.  Within Woolfolk’s book, this is referred to as the magic middle – what the student already knows and what the student isn’t ready to learn yet (Woolfolk, Chapter 2, p. 61).

So, who’s your guy?  Vygotsky or Piaget?  For me, it’s a hard decision since Piaget and Vygotsky were key contributors to the educational psychology field.  It’s pretty amazing that we are still talking and studying their work all these years later.  They were both pioneers and will continue to be important theorists for many future generations to follow as well.