Piaget's Cognitive Development

Piaget’s Four Stage Theory is one of the leading theories on cognitive development. He identifies sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, and formal operational as the four stages of psychological development.  During the sensorimotor stage, infants use their five senses to learn about the world through examination and experimentation, eventually developing object permanence.  Responses in this stage are based solely on their immediate circumstances due to their inability to categorize objects and situations.  Years 2 to 7 are considered the preoperational stage.  Pressley and McCormick (2007) explain that during this stage children develop symbolic schemes “that allow them to represent objects or events by language, mental images, and gestures” (p. 62).  Deferred imitation, symbolic play, egocentrism, and conservation also begin during this phase of development. Primary school students fall into the concrete operational stage as they have the ability to understand facts but still find it difficult to comprehend abstract ideas and concepts.  Cognitive categorization and organization develop during these years allowing students to understand relationships between items and place them in order according to specific parameters. Finally, the formal operational stage begins in early adolescence as socialization, problem solving,  and abstract and forward thinking develop. Students in this phase are capable of in-depth discussion, multi-factored problem solving, and forming hypotheses.

The implications of these stages greatly influence curriculum, lesson planning, and instruction in the classroom.  Because students develop at various paces, educators must diagnose their students’ current developments stages in order to identify appropriate class content and instructional methods for their students.  Sensitivity to students’ limitations must be coupled with a commitment to equilibration as the teacher helps their students move from one cognitive stage to the next.  Constructivist approaches best aid this advancement by providing experiential learning in the form of guided discovery, modeling, and collaboration.  It is through these methods that teachers can provide an engaging and challenging classroom experience that caters to each of their students’ developmental needs.