Discussion with some evidences of the critiques by other psychologists on Piaget’s theory of

cognitive development

Nor Aishah bt Yacob (1115502)

Bachelor of Guidance and Counseling

International Islamic University Malaysia

Paper submitted as partial fulfilment of requirement for EDP 1103 Educational Psychology,

Section 1, instructed by Prof. Dr. Nik Ahmad Hisham Ismail at the Institute of Education of the

International Islamic University Malaysia in Semester 1, 2011/2012

INTERNATIONAL ISLAMIC UNIVERSITY MALAYSIA

Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

Jean Piaget, born in Switzerland in 1896, is the most influential developmental

psychologist who was published cognitive development theory. His theory has dominated the field

of intellectual development in Psychology field.

In general, Piaget’s research and theory of cognitive development is useful because the

theory give wide information about the infant’s development of cognitive skill. However, there are

a few limitations of Piaget’s theory. Therefore, his theory has come under criticism from many

researchers or psychologists. First, the Piaget’s theory of cognitive development highlighted the

four stages of cognitive developments that are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operation and

formal operation. These stages describe how people’s intelligence change as they grow older. In the

first part of stage that is sensorimotor stage, it is more emphasize on sense and reaction. Children

learn about themselves through sensory activities like seeing, hearing and tasting and motor

activities such as moving, touching and reaching. According to Piaget, in this stage, 10-month-old

child does not develop a mature sense of object permanence as measured on tasks. In short, the

children can be fooled and do not have the ability and knowledge on how to search for hidden

objects. However, researchers have found some weaknesses from Piaget’s theory on this stage.

Many researches disagree about the specific role that infant cognition play. In particular, they note

that the infants often capable of more adultlike behavior when the tasks are more obvious than those

used by Piaget (Craig & Dunn, 2006). Recent research found that, 9 month old infants have shown

an ability to search for hidden objects because they have had a growth in memory capacity. Besides

that, according to research by Gibson, (2000); Mandler, (1990) (as cited in Craig&Dunn, 2006),

most developmentalists claim that Piaget overemphasize motor development and did not

sufficiently recognize the significant of early perception advances. They believed that infants know

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Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

more than they can physically show with limited motor actions. So it is clearly contra with Piaget’s

theory, that believed children showed intellectual development through their action or behavior.

Piaget’s preoperational period begin about the time the child starts to talk about age 2 to

age 7. Based on Piaget proposed, the preoperational children have limited way of thinking as they

cannot do many of the thought processes and mature thinking. Although his general views have

been supported, later research has pointed out that children are probably more competent and their

thinking is not as limited as Piaget’s view suggests, as noted by M. Hughes & Donaldson, (1979),

(as cited Craig and Dunn, 2006). Recent research on theory of mind has found that children of 4 to

5 years old have an advanced or new understanding of their own mental process as well as those of

other people. This has been proven that Piaget underestimate children’s ability or skill of attention,

memory and language. As a proven, researchers have found that young children can succeed on

simpler forms of tasks requiring the same skills. For example, when asked to solve problems about

six or fewer cookies, 3 to 5 years olds displayed an array of premathematical abilities and concepts

as noted by Baroody, (2000), (as cited in Craig and Dunn, 2006).

In the concrete operations stage, Piaget described dramatic changes in the characteristics of

children’s thinking as they develop the ability to think in a more logical way, flexible and organized

which extends from about the age of 7 to the age of 11 or 12. Piaget believed that the children in

this stage can build a hierarchical classification or arrangement and understand the relations among

the levels of the hierarchy by using logicomathematical model proposed by him. According to

Ginsburg and Opper, (1988), Piaget’s approach to classification is a very specific sort because he

focuses mainly on the hierarchical structure of classes such as, class inclusion. He hasn't concerned

with other aspects of concepts which seem to be quite important. Thus, current researchers have

developed a new approach which contradictory with Piaget’s approach that is focused on nonlogical

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Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

aspects of children’s concept. For example, give the children a test of inference based on verbal

statement and train them to remember and not give them to classify the physical material present.

Perhaps they could solve it even without the physical presence of the sticks. In addition, researchers

have shown that apparently children can classify objects at an earlier age as young as 3 to 4 months

and in a more advanced fashion than Piaget believed possible as noted by Eimas,(1994); Eimas,

Quinn and Cowen, (1994);Haith and Benson,(1998);Quinn, Cummins, Kase, Martin, and

Weissman, (1996), (as cited in Hetherington & Mavis, 2006 )

The last stage of Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is a formal operation stage. This

stage begins when children develop the thinking capacity that is abstract, systematic, and

hypothetical. According to Craig and Dunn, Piagets’ view of formal operations focused mostly on

the thoughtful development that allow for more flexible and complex thinking and that involve

abstract ideas and concepts. However, some research has critiqued Piaget’s argument “all children

will automatically move to the next stage of development as they are mature”. Data has shown that

nearly a half of adults do not meet the level of formal operations, and not everyone appears to be

capable of abstract reasoning. These people are possibly not cognitively immature, but have

different aspects of mature thought not covered by Piaget (Paplia, Olds, and Feldman, 1998).

Actually, not all adolescents or, for the matter, all adults, in societies reach the stage of formal

operation and achieved the flexibility in problem solving that associated with this period as noted

by Kuhn and Franklin, (2006), ( as cited in Hetherington & Mavis, 2006). Besides that, Piaget was

used unscientific methods in conducting research as he uses small sample, lack of control and

absences of statical analysis in his research (Berk, 1991).

In conclusion, despite the Piaget’s theory was under criticisms by most researchers but, his

theory gave a great contribution on Psychology field.

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Criticisms of Piaget’s Theory

References

Craig, G.J., Dunn, W.L. (2006). Understanding Human Development (1st Ed.). New Jersey:

Pearson Prentice Hall.

Papalia, D.E., Olds, S.W., & Feldman, R.D. (1998). Human development (7th Ed.). Boston:

McGraw-Hill.

Ginsburg, H.P., Opper, S. (1988). Piaget’s Theory of Intellectual Development (3rd Ed.).

Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

Hetherington, Mavis, E. (1999). Child psychology: a Contemporary Viewpoint (5th Ed.). New

York, NY : McGraw-Hill.

Berks, L.E. (1991). Child Development (2nd Ed.). Allyn and Bacon, USA.

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