Four Major Stages of Piaget’s Cognitive Development
Jean 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.
Important Concepts within Piaget’s Model:
Schemes: Mental model of the world that we use to represent, organize, and interpret our experiences
Assimilation: Integrating new experiences into an existing scheme
Accommodation: Changing or modifying a scheme in order to incorporate a new experience
Four Major Stages:
- Sensorimotor (0-2 years)
- Infant’s world consists of the immediate environment
- Interact and learn by sensory input (hearing, feeling, seeing) with motor capabilities
- Gradually learn to control their own bodies and objects in the external world
- The ultimate task at this stage is to achieve the sense that objects go on existing even when we cannot see them (Object Constancy/Permanence).
- Preoperational (2-7 years)
- Developing ability to manipulate images and symbols, especially language
- Play becomes key in learning. Begin to see use of symbolism in pretend play (e.g. Use a broomstick as a “horsey”).
- Child’s view of the world is egocentric.
- Logical organization of thoughts remains undeveloped (e.g. unable to apply principles of conservation).
- Concrete Operations (7-11 years)
- Perform logical operations, but only in relation to concrete objects, not abstract ideas.
- Basic math skills developed (counting, addition, subtraction) as well as an understanding of conservation.
- Can sort items into categories, reverse the direction of their thinking, and think about two concepts simultaneously.
- Able to understand a situation from another person’s perspective.
- Formal Operations (12+ years)
- Begin to think logically and abstractly, including speculations about what might happen in the future
- Theoretical, philosophical, and scientific reasoning becomes possible.
- Abstract concepts and moral values become as important as concrete objects.
- With these newly developed thinking abilities, adolescents begin to reinterpret and revise their knowledge base.
Almost every CTET and State TET ( UPTET, HTET etc) question paper has questions from this topic.
Previous Year Questions:
Question #1 | According to Jean Piaget, which of the following is necessary for learning?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2016-09]
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Question #2 | According to Jean Piaget, schema building occurs as a result of modifying new information to fit existing schemes and by modifying old schemes as per new information. These two processes are known as: [Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2016-09]
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Question #3 | According to Piaget, children’s thinking differs in _________ from adults than in ________
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2016-02]
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Question #4 | According to Piaget, a child between 2 to 7 yr is in the ………….. stage of cognitive development.
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2015-09]
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Question #5 | According to Piaget, at which of the following stages does a child begin to think logically about abstract propositions? [Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2011-06]
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Question #6 | Ria does not agree with Rishabh about setting up a class picnic. She thinks that the rules can be revised to suit the majority . This kind of peer disagreement, according to Piaget, refers to
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2014-09]
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Question #7 | Which of the following statements is correct about Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2016-09]
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Question #8 | The concept of ‘conservation’ as proposed by Jean Piaget means that:
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2016-09]
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Question #9 | Which of the following statements describes Piaget and Vygotsky’s views on language and thought correctly?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2016-09]
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Question #10 | According to Piaget’s stages of Cognitive Development, the associated with
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2012-01]
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Question #11 | According to Piaget’s cognitive theory of learning, the process by which the cognitive structure is modified is called
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2012-01]
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Question #12 | The stage of cognitive development according to Piaget, in which a child displays ‘object permanence’ is
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2012-01]
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Question #13 |
Rashid is studying in class V. He can classify various types of triangles in different categories but has difficulty in understanding the abstract proof for the sum of three angles in a triangle to be always 180. According to Piaget Cognitive Theory, Rashid is
[Mathematics] [CTET-2013-07]
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Question #14 | According to Piaget theory, which one out of the following will not influence one’s cognitive development?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2015-02]
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Question #15 | Which of the following figures correctly represents the development according to piaget’s developmental theory?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2014-02]
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Question #16 | Which of the following implications cannot be derived from piaget’s theory of cognitive development?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2014-02]
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Question #17 | In the context of language development, which of the following areas was underestimated by Piaget?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2014-02]
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Question #18 | According to Jean Piaget’s theory
[Mathematics] [CTET-2014-02]
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Question #19 | According to Piaget, which one of the following factors plays an important role in influencing development?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2016-02]
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Question #20 | In a constructivist classroom as envisioned by Piaget and Vygotsky, learning
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2016-02]
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Question #21 | Algebra is introduced in the middle classes. According to Piagets’ theory of cognitive development, it is appropriate to introduce algebra at this stage as
[Mathematics] [CTET-2013-07]
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Question #22 | According to Piaget, during the first stage of development (birth to about 2 years age), a child learns best
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2011-06]
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Question #23 | What term/phrase does Piaget use for ‘mental structures which are the building blocks of thinking’?
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [CTET-2015-09]
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Question #24 | According to Piaget, when the child is at formal operational stage, it is appropriate to introduce:
[Mathematics] [CTET-2015-09]
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Question #25 | According to piaget, the second stage of cognitive development is
[Child Development and Pedagogy] [UPTET-2017-10]
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