Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development Flashcards

Jean Piaget's stages and key concepts for CTET.

Sensorimotor stage: Birth to 2 years – object permanence develops.
Pre-operational stage: 2 to 7 years – symbolic thought, egocentrism, animism.
Concrete operational stage: 7 to 11 years – conservation, reversibility, logical thinking about concrete objects.
Formal operational stage: 11 years onwards – abstract and hypothetical-deductive reasoning.
Schema: Mental framework for organising knowledge.
Assimilation: Fitting new information into an existing schema.
Accommodation: Changing an existing schema to fit new information.
Equilibration: Balancing assimilation and accommodation to reach understanding.
Piaget's view of the child: An active 'little scientist' who constructs knowledge (constructivism).
What is cognitive schema?: A mental framework used to organise and interpret experience.
What is adaptation in Piaget's theory?: Adjusting thinking to deal with new experiences.
What are the two processes of adaptation?: Assimilation and accommodation.
What is assimilation?: Fitting new experience into an existing schema.
What is accommodation?: Changing a schema to fit new information.
What is equilibration?: Restoring cognitive balance after new information creates conflict.
What is disequilibrium?: Cognitive imbalance when existing schemas cannot explain experience.
What is organization?: Coordinating schemas into increasingly complex cognitive structures.
What is the sensorimotor stage?: Birth–2 years; learning mainly through senses and actions.
What is the key achievement of the sensorimotor stage?: Object permanence.
What is object permanence?: Understanding that objects exist even when unseen.
What is means-end behaviour?: Using an action deliberately to achieve a goal.
What is deferred imitation?: Repeating an observed action after the model is absent.
What is the pre-operational stage?: About 2–7 years; symbolic thought develops, but logic is limited.
What is symbolic function?: Using words, images or objects to represent something else.
What is egocentrism?: Difficulty understanding perspectives different from one's own.
What is animism?: Attributing life or feelings to non-living objects.
What is artificialism?: Believing natural objects or events were deliberately made by people.
What is transductive reasoning?: Linking specific events as cause and effect without logical justification.
What is centration?: Focusing on one aspect while ignoring others.
What is the concrete operational stage?: About 7–11 years; logical thinking develops for concrete situations.
What is conservation?: Understanding that quantity remains constant despite appearance changes.
What is reversibility?: Understanding that an operation can be mentally undone.
What is decentration?: Considering several aspects of a situation simultaneously.
What is seriation?: Arranging objects systematically according to a dimension such as size.
What is class inclusion?: Understanding that a subclass is part of a larger class.
What is the formal operational stage?: About 11+ years; abstract and hypothetical reasoning develops.
What is hypothetical-deductive reasoning?: Testing possible explanations systematically to reach a conclusion.
What is propositional reasoning?: Reasoning logically about statements without concrete objects.
What is the key Piagetian teaching principle?: Learners actively construct knowledge through interaction and exploration.