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Bruner
Saul McLeod published 2008, updated 2012

The outcome of cognitive development is thinking. The intelligent mind creates from
experience "generic coding systems that permit one to go beyond the data to new and
possibly fruitful predictions" (Bruner, 1957, p. 234). Thus, children, as they grow,
must acquire a way of representing the "recurrent regularities" in their environment.
So, to Bruner, important outcomes of learning include not just the concepts,
categories, and problem-solving procedures invented previously by the culture, but
also the ability to "invent" these things for oneself.
Cognitive growth involves an interaction between basic human capabilities and
"culturally invented technologies that serve as amplifiers of these capabilities."
These culturally invented technologies include not just obvious things such as
computers and television, but also more abstract notions such as the way a culture
categorizes phenomena, and language itself. Bruner would likely agree
with Vygotsky that language serves to mediate between environmental stimuli and the
individual's response.
The aim of education should be to create autonomous learners (i.e., learning to learn).
In his research on the cognitive development of children (1966), Jerome Bruner
proposed three modes of representation:
 Enactive representation (action-based)
 Iconic representation (image-based)
 Symbolic representation (language-based)

Bruner's Three Modes of

Representation
Modes of representation are the way in which information or knowledge are stored
and encoded in memory.
Rather than neat age related stages (like Piaget), the modes of representation are
integrated and only loosely sequential as they "translate" into each other.

Enactive (0 - 1 years)
This appears first. It involves encoding action based information and storing it in our
memory. For example, in the form of movement as a muscle memory, a baby might
remember the action of shaking a rattle.
The child represents past events through motor responses, i.e., an infant will “shake a
rattle” which has just been removed or dropped, as if the movements themselves are
expected to produce the accustomed sound. And this is not just limited to children.
Many adults can perform a variety of motor tasks (typing, sewing a shirt, operating a
lawn mower) that they would find difficult to describe in iconic (picture) or symbolic
(word) form.

Iconic (1 - 6 years)
This is where information is stored visually in the form of images (a mental picture in
the mind’s eye). For some, this is conscious; others say they don’t experience it. This
may explain why, when we are learning a new subject, it is often helpful to have
diagrams or illustrations to accompany verbal information.

Symbolic (7 years onwards)

This develops last. This is where information is stored in the form of a code or
symbol, such as language. This is the most adaptable form of representation, for
actions & images have a fixed relation to that which they represent. Dog is a symbolic
representation of a single class.
Symbols are flexible in that they can be manipulated, ordered, classified etc., so the
user isn’t constrained by actions or images. In the symbolic stage, knowledge is stored
primarily as words, mathematical symbols, or in other symbol systems.
Bruner's constructivist theory suggests it is effective when faced with new material to
follow a progression from enactive to iconic to symbolic representation; this holds
true even for adult learners. A true instructional designer, Bruner's work also suggests
that a learner even of a very young age is capable of learning any material so long as
the instruction is organized appropriately, in sharp contrast to the beliefs of Piaget and
other stage theorists.

The Importance of Language

Language is important for the increased ability to deal with abstract concepts. Bruner
argues that language can code stimuli and free an individual from the constraints of
dealing only with appearances, to provide a more complex yet flexible cognition.
The use of words can aid the development of the concepts they represent and can
remove the constraints of the “here & now” concept. Bruner views the infant as an
intelligent & active problem solver from birth, with intellectual abilities basically
similar to those of the mature adult.

Educational Implications
For Bruner (1961), the purpose of education is not to impart knowledge, but instead to
facilitate a child's thinking and problem solving skills which can then be transferred to
a range of situations. Specifically, education should also develop symbolic thinking in
children.
In 1960 Bruner's text, The Process of Education was published. The main premise of
Bruner's text was that students are active learners who construct their own knowledge.
Bruner (1960) opposed Piaget's notion of readiness. He argued that schools waste time
trying to match the complexity of subject material to a child's cognitive stage of
development. This means students are held back by teachers as certain topics are
deemed too difficult to understand and must be taught when the teacher believes the
child has reached the appropriate state of cognitive maturity.
Bruner (1960) adopts a different view and believes a child (of any age) is capable of
understanding complex information: 'We begin with the hypothesis that any subject
can be taught effectively in some intellectually honest form to any child at any stage
of development.' (p. 33)
Bruner (1960) explained how this was possible through the concept of the spiral
curriculum. This involved information being structured so that complex ideas can be
taught at a simplified level first, and then re-visited at more complex levels later on.
Therefore, subjects would be taught at levels of gradually increasing difficultly (hence
the spiral analogy). Ideally, teaching his way should lead to children being able to
solve problems by themselves.
Bruner (1961) proposes that learners’ construct their own knowledge and do this by
organizing and categorizing information using a coding system. Bruner believed that
the most effective way to develop a coding system is to discover it rather than being
told it by the teacher. The concept of discovery learning implies that students
construct their own knowledge for themselves (also known as a constructivist
approach).
The role of the teacher should not be to teach information by rote learning, but instead
to facilitate the learning process. This means that a good teacher will design lessons
that help students discover the relationship between bits of information. To do this a
teacher must give students the information they need, but without organizing for them.
The use of the spiral curriculum can aid the process of discovery learning.

Bruner and Vygotsky

Both Bruner and Vygotsky emphasize a child's environment, especially the social
environment, more than Piaget did. Both agree that adults should play an active role in
assisting the child's learning.
Bruner, like Vygotsky, emphasized the social nature of learning, citing that other
people should help a child develop skills through the process of scaffolding. The term
scaffolding first appeared in the literature when Wood, Bruner and Ross described
how tutors' interacted with preschooler to help them solve a block reconstruction
problem (Wood et al., 1976).
The concept of scaffolding is very similar to Vygotsky's notion of the zone of
proximal development, and it's not uncommon for the terms to be used
interchangeably. Scaffolding involves helpful, structured interaction between an adult
and a child with the aim of helping the child achieve a specific goal.
'[Scaffolding] refers to the steps taken to reduce the degrees of freedom in carrying
out some task so that the child can concentrate on the difficult skill she is in the
process of acquiring' (Bruner, 1978, p. 19).

Bruner and Piaget

Obviously, there are similarities between Piaget and Bruner, but an
important difference is that Bruner’s modes are not related in terms of which
presuppose the one that precedes it. While sometimes one mode may dominate in
usage, they coexist.
Bruner states that what determines the level of intellectual development is the extent
to which the child has been given appropriate instruction together with practice or
experience. So - the right way of presentation and the right explanation will enable a
child to grasp a concept usually only understood by an adult. His theory stresses the
role of education and the adult.
Although Bruner proposes stages of cognitive development, he doesn’t see them as
representing different separate modes of thought at different points of development
(like Piaget). Instead, he sees a gradual development of cognitive skills and techniques
into more integrated “adult” cognitive techniques.
Bruner views symbolic representation as crucial for cognitive development, and
since language is our primary means of symbolizing the world, he attaches great
importance to language in determining cognitive development.

BRUNER AGREES WITH

PIAGET BRUNER DISAGREES WITH PIAGET

Children are PRE-ADAPTED Development is a CONTINUOUS PROCESS –

to learning not a series of stages

Children have a NATURAL The development of LANGUAGE is a cause not

CURIOSITY a consequence of cognitive development

Children’s COGNITIVE You can SPEED-UP cognitive development.

STRUCTURES develop over You don’t have to wait for the child to be ready
time
BRUNER AGREES WITH
PIAGET BRUNER DISAGREES WITH PIAGET

Children are ACTIVE The involvement of ADULTS and MORE

participants in the learning KNOWLEDGEABLE PEERS makes a big
process difference

Cognitive development entails The involvement of ADULTS and MORE

the acquisition of SYMBOLS KNOWLEDGEABLE PEERS makes a big
difference

References
Bruner, J. S. (1957). Going beyond the information given. New York: Norton.
Bruner, J. S. (1960). The Process of education. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1961). The act of discovery. Harvard Educational Review, 31, 21-32.
Bruner, J. S. (1966). Toward a theory of instruction, Cambridge, Mass.: Belkapp
Press.
Bruner, J. S. (1973). The relevance of education. New York: Norton.
Bruner, J. S. (1978). The role of dialogue in language acquisition. In A. Sinclair, R., J.
Jarvelle, and W. J.M. Levelt (eds.) The Child's Concept of Language. New York:
Springer-Verlag.
Wood, D. J., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem
solving. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, 17(2), 89-100.

How to reference this article:

McLeod, S. A. (2008). Bruner. Retrieved from
www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html
Home › Developmental Psychology › Piaget

Jean Piaget
by Saul McLeod, updated 2015

Piaget's (1936) theory of cognitive development explains how a child constructs a

mental model of the world. He disagreed with the idea that intelligence was a fixed
trait, and regarded cognitive development as a process which occurs due to biological
maturation and interaction with the environment.
Piaget was employed at the Binet Institute in the 1920s, where his job was to develop
French versions of questions on English intelligence tests. He became intrigued with
the reasons children gave for their wrong answers to the questions that required
logical thinking. He believed that these incorrect answers revealed important
differences between the thinking of adults and children.
Piaget (1936) was the first psychologist to make a systematic study of cognitive
development. His contributions include a stage theory of child cognitive development,
detailed observational studies of cognition in children, and a series of simple but
ingenious tests to reveal different cognitive abilities.
What Piaget wanted to do was not to measure how well children could count, spell or
solve problems as a way of grading their I.Q. What he was more interested in was the
way in which fundamental concepts like the very idea of number, time,
quantity, causality, justice and so on emerged.
Before Piaget’s work, the common assumption in psychology was that children are
merely less competent thinkers than adults. Piaget showed that young children think
in strikingly different ways compared to adults.
According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure (genetically
inherited and evolved) on which all subsequent learning and knowledge are based.
Piaget's Theory Differs From Others In Several Ways:
▪ It is concerned with children, rather than all learners.
▪ It focuses on development, rather than learning per se, so it does not address learning
of information or specific behaviors.
▪ It proposes discrete stages of development, marked by qualitative differences, rather
than a gradual increase in number and complexity of behaviors, concepts, ideas, etc.
The goal of the theory is to explain the mechanisms and processes by which the
infant, and then the child, develops into an individual who can reason and think using
hypotheses.
To Piaget, cognitive development was a progressive reorganization of mental
processes as a result of biological maturation and environmental experience. Children
construct an understanding of the world around them, then experience discrepancies
between what they already know and what they discover in their environment.
There Are Three Basic Components To Piaget's Cognitive Theory:
1. Schemas

(building blocks of knowledge).

2. Adaptation processes that enable the transition from one stage to another
(equilibrium, assimilation, and accommodation).

3. Stages of Cognitive Development:

o sensorimotor,
o preoperational,
o concrete operational,
o formal operational.

Schemas
Imagine what it would be like if you did not have a mental model of your world. It
would mean that you would not be able to make so much use of information from
your past experience or to plan future actions.
Schemas are the basic building blocks of such cognitive models, and enable us to
form a mental representation of the world. Piaget (1952, p. 7) defined a schema as:
"a cohesive, repeatable action sequence possessing component actions that are tightly
interconnected and governed by a core meaning."
In more simple terms Piaget called the schema the basic building block of intelligent
behavior – a way of organizing knowledge. Indeed, it is useful to think of schemas as
“units” of knowledge, each relating to one aspect of the world, including objects,
actions, and abstract (i.e., theoretical) concepts.
Wadsworth (2004) suggests that schemata (the plural of schema) be thought of as
'index cards' filed in the brain, each one telling an individual how to react to incoming
stimuli or information.
When Piaget talked about the development of a person's mental processes, he was
referring to increases in the number and complexity of the schemata that a person had
learned.
When a child's existing schemas are capable of explaining what it can perceive around
it, it is said to be in a state of equilibrium, i.e., a state of cognitive (i.e., mental)
balance.
Piaget emphasized the importance of schemas in cognitive development and described
how they were developed or acquired. A schema can be defined as a set of linked
mental representations of the world, which we use both to understand and to respond
to situations. The assumption is that we store these mental representations and apply
them when needed.
For example, a person might have a schema about buying a meal in a restaurant. The
schema is a stored form of the pattern of behavior which includes looking at a menu,
ordering food, eating it and paying the bill. This is an example of a type of schema
called a 'script.' Whenever they are in a restaurant, they retrieve this schema from
memory and apply it to the situation.
The schemas Piaget described tend to be simpler than this - especially those used by
infants. He described how - as a child gets older - his or her schemas become more
numerous and elaborate.
Piaget believed that newborn babies have a small number of innate schemas - even
before they have had many opportunities to experience the world. These neonatal
schemas are the cognitive structures underlying innate reflexes. These reflexes are
genetically programmed into us.
For example, babies have a sucking reflex, which is triggered by something touching
the baby's lips. A baby will suck a nipple, a comforter (dummy), or a person's finger.
Piaget, therefore, assumed that the baby has a 'sucking schema.'
Similarly, the grasping reflex which is elicited when something touches the palm of a
baby's hand, or the rooting reflex, in which a baby will turn its head towards
something which touches its cheek, are innate schemas. Shaking a rattle would be the
combination of two schemas, grasping and shaking.

Assimilation and Accommodation

Jean Piaget (1952; see also Wadsworth, 2004) viewed intellectual growth as a process
of adaptation (adjustment) to the world. This happens through:

 Assimilation
– Which is using an existing schema to deal with a new object or situation.

 Accommodation
– This happens when the existing schema (knowledge) does not work, and needs
to be changed to deal with a new object or situation.

 Equilibration
– This is the force which moves development along. Piaget believed that
cognitive development did not progress at a steady rate, but rather in leaps and
bounds.

Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information
through assimilation. However, an unpleasant state of disequilibrium occurs
when new information cannot be fitted into existing schemas (assimilation).
Equilibration is the force which drives the learning process as we do not like to
be frustrated and will seek to restore balance by mastering the new challenge
(accommodation). Once the new information is acquired the process of
assimilation with the new schema will continue until the next time we need to
make an adjustment to it.
Example of Assimilation
A 2-year-old child sees a man who is bald on top of his head and has long frizzy hair
on the sides. To his father’s horror, the toddler shouts “Clown, clown” (Siegler et al.,
2003).

Example of Accommodation
In the “clown” incident, the boy’s father explained to his son that the man was not a
clown and that even though his hair was like a clown’s, he wasn’t wearing a funny
costume and wasn’t doing silly things to make people laugh.
With this new knowledge, the boy was able to change his schema of “clown” and
make this idea fit better to a standard concept of “clown”.

Stages of Development
Piaget proposed four stages of cognitive development which reflect the increasing
sophistication of children's thought:
1. Sensorimotor stage (birth to age 2)
2. Pre-operational stage (from age 2 to age 7)
3. Concrete operational stage (from age 7 to age 11)
4. Formal operational stage (age 11+ - adolescence and adulthood).
Each child goes through the stages in the same order, and child development is
determined by biological maturation and interaction with the environment. Although
no stage can be missed out, there are individual differences in the rate at which
children progress through stages, and some individuals may never attain the later
stages.
Piaget did not claim that a particular stage was reached at a certain age - although
descriptions of the stages often include an indication of the age at which the average
child would reach each stage.
Sensorimotor Stage (Birth-2 yrs)
The main achievement during this stage is object permanence - knowing that an object
still exists, even if it is hidden.
It requires the ability to form a mental representation (i.e., a schema) of the object.
Preoperational Stage (2-7 years)
During this stage, young children can think about things symbolically. This is the
ability to make one thing - a word or an object - stand for something other than itself.
Thinking is still egocentric, and the infant has difficulty taking the viewpoint of
others.
Concrete Operational Stage (7-11 years)
Piaget considered the concrete stage a major turning point in the child's cognitive
development because it marks the beginning of logical or operational thought.
This means the child can work things out internally in their head (rather than
physically try things out in the real world).
Children can conserve number (age 6), mass (age 7), and weight (age 9). Conservation
is the understanding that something stays the same in quantity even though its
appearance changes.
Formal Operational Stage (11 years and over)
The formal operational stage begins at approximately age eleven and lasts into
adulthood. During this time, people develop the ability to think about abstract
concepts, and logically test hypotheses.

Educational Implications
Piaget (1952) did not explicitly relate his theory to education, although later
researchers have explained how features of Piaget's theory can be applied to teaching
and learning.
Piaget has been extremely influential in developing educational policy and teaching
practice. For example, a review of primary education by the UK government in 1966
was based strongly on Piaget’s theory. The result of this review led to the publication
of the Plowden report (1967).
Discovery learning – the idea that children learn best through doing and actively
exploring - was seen as central to the transformation of the primary school curriculum.
'The report's recurring themes are individual learning, flexibility in the curriculum, the
centrality of play in children's learning, the use of the environment, learning by
discovery and the importance of the evaluation of children's progress - teachers should
'not assume that only what is measurable is valuable.'
Because Piaget's theory is based upon biological maturation and stages, the notion of
'readiness' is important. Readiness concerns when certain information or concepts
should be taught. According to Piaget's theory children should not be taught certain
concepts until they have reached the appropriate stage of cognitive development.
According to Piaget (1958), assimilation and accommodation require an active
learner, not a passive one, because problem-solving skills cannot be taught, they must
be discovered.
Within the classroom learning should be student-centered and accomplished through
active discovery learning. The role of the teacher is to facilitate learning, rather than
direct tuition. Therefore, teachers should encourage the following within the
classroom:
o Focus on the process of learning, rather than the end product of it.
o Using active methods that require rediscovering or reconstructing "truths."
o Using collaborative, as well as individual activities (so children can learn from each
other).
o Devising situations that present useful problems, and create disequilibrium in the child.
o Evaluate the level of the child's development so suitable tasks can be set.

Critical Evaluation
Support
 The influence of Piaget’s ideas in developmental psychology has been enormous.
He changed how people viewed the child’s world and their methods of studying
children.

He was an inspiration to many who came after and took up his ideas. Piaget's
ideas have generated a huge amount of research which has increased our
understanding of cognitive development.

 His ideas have been of practical use in understanding and communicating with
children, particularly in the field of education (re: Discovery Learning).
Criticisms
 Are the stages real? Vygotsky and Bruner would rather not talk about stages at
all, preferring to see development as a continuous process. Others have queried
the age ranges of the stages. Some studies have shown that progress to the formal
operational stage is not guaranteed.

For example, Keating (1979) reported that 40-60% of college students fail at
formal operation tasks, and Dasen (1994) states that only one-third of adults ever
reach the formal operational stage.

 Because Piaget concentrated on the universal stages of cognitive development

and biological maturation, he failed to consider the effect that the social setting
and culture may have on cognitive development.

Dasen (1994) cites studies he conducted in remote parts of the central Australian
desert with 8-14 year old Aborigines. He gave them conservation of liquid tasks
and spatial awareness tasks. He found that the ability to conserve came later in
the aboriginal children, between aged 10 and 13 ( as opposed to between 5 and 7,
with Piaget’s Swiss sample).
However, he found that spatial awareness abilities developed earlier amongst the
Aboriginal children than the Swiss children. Such a study demonstrates cognitive
development is not purely dependent on maturation but on cultural factors too –
spatial awareness is crucial for nomadic groups of people.
Vygotsky, a contemporary of Piaget, argued that social interaction is crucial for
cognitive development. According to Vygotsky the child's learning always occurs
in a social context in co-operation with someone more skillful (MKO). This
social interaction provides language opportunities and language is the foundation
of thought.

 Piaget’s methods (observation and clinical interviews) are more open to biased
interpretation than other methods. Piaget made careful, detailed naturalistic
observations of children, and from these he wrote diary descriptions charting their
development. He also used clinical interviews and observations of older children
who were able to understand questions and hold conversations.

Because Piaget conducted the observations alone the data collected are based on
his own subjective interpretation of events. It would have been more reliable if
Piaget conducted the observations with another researcher and compared the
results afterward to check if they are similar (i.e., have inter-rater reliability).
 Although clinical interviews allow the researcher to explore data in more depth,
the interpretation of the interviewer may be biased. For example, children may
not understand the question/s, they have short attention spans, they cannot
express themselves very well and may be trying to please the experimenter. Such
methods meant that Piaget may have formed inaccurate conclusions.

 As several studies have shown Piaget underestimated the abilities of children

because his tests were sometimes confusing or difficult to understand
(e.g., Hughes, 1975). Piaget failed to distinguish between competence (what a
child is capable of doing) and performance (what a child can show when given a
particular task). When tasks were altered, performance (and therefore
competence) was affected. Therefore, Piaget might have underestimated
children’s cognitive abilities.

For example, a child might have object permanence (competence) but still not be
able to search for objects (performance). When Piaget hid objects from babies he
found that it wasn’t till after nine months that they looked for it. However, Piaget
relied on manual search methods – whether the child was looking for the object
or not.
Later, research such as Baillargeon and Devos (1991) reported that infants as
young as four months looked longer at a moving carrot that didn’t do what it
expected, suggesting they had some sense of permanence, otherwise they
wouldn’t have had any expectation of what it should or shouldn’t do.

 The concept of schema is incompatible with the theories of Bruner (1966) and
Vygotsky (1978). Behaviorism would also refute Piaget’s schema theory because
is cannot be directly observed as it is an internal process. Therefore, they would
claim it cannot be objectively measured.
 Piaget studied his own children and the children of his colleagues in Geneva in
order to deduce general principles about the intellectual development of all
children. Not only was his sample very small, but it was composed solely of
European children from families of high socio-economic status. Researchers have
therefore questioned the generalisability of his data.
 For Piaget, language is seen as secondary to action, i.e., thought precedes
language. The Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky (1978) argues that the
development of language and thought go together and that the origin of reasoning
is more to do with our ability to communicate with others than with our
interaction with the material world.

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APA Style References

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How to reference this article:

McLeod, S. A. (2015). Jean Piaget. Retrieved from
www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html