PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Evaluation of Piaget's Theory
Other studies show children that have the same cognitive abilities that Piaget mention but at earlier ages.
Improving and altering the testing done also changes how well you can see their cognitive abilities.
Piaget also overestimated people's formal operational abilities and other studies suggest that only one third of the population reaches this stage.
Piaget's theory provided detailed descriptions of development but doesn't explain why. Some concepts are vague and overlap each other.
Piaget also neglected individual factors such as memory span, motivation, and practice. Many researchers focus on the self construction of mental ability and no the social influences.
Piaget's experiments were called over-complicated. Researchers like Bower and Wishart have simplified his object permanence experiment and showed cognitive abilities in children that weren't expected to.
Piaget may have also led the children to give a socially desirable answer and ignored their social understanding of the test. McGarrigle and Donaldson demonstrated greater conservation rates in their experiment compared to Piaget.
Piaget used interview methods, informal experimentation, small sample sizes, and his generalized conclusions may have been biased.
His theory has received a lot of cross-cultural support even though his theory has been subject to modification. He hoped that his ideas would be integrated with other theories and many of his fundamental ideas are still accepted today.
Piaget introduced a huge amount of research that increases our understanding about cognitive development and also influenced other researchers to developed their own ideas.
Piaget's views have impacted educational practice and helped make education more effective. His theories have also contributed to theories about children play and moral development.
