PSYCHOLOGY: Application of Jean Piaget Theory of Cognitive Development

JEAN PIAGET’S BIOGRAPHY

According to Omari (2006:135) Jean Piaget was the Swiss psychologist born in 1896. He first published his article at the age of eleven (11) and did his both bachelors and PhDs in biological sciences at the age of 21. This was much to do with the adaptive behavior of organisms. After this he was later introduced to philosophy, logic and religion (theodicy) by his god father.

JEAN PIAGET THEORY OF COGNITIVE DEVELOPMENT

According to Feldman R S. (1996), cognitive development “is the process by which a child’s understanding of the world’s changes as the function of age and experience” Woolfolk E A. (1990 ) also added that “this is the gradual orderly changes by which mental processes become more complex and sophisticated changes in thinking”

The Piaget’s theory of cognitive development is the most influential theory in terms/vis-à-vis our understanding of human cognitive processes and their relevance to children’s education.

Piaget propounded some stages under which a child undergoes in intelligence or cognitive development as far as personality development is concerned. Piaget argued for the fascinating journey of development between nature and nurture: that they work together to shape a person in development, which rouses controversies before him. He gave the following stages according to ages:

The first stage is sensory motor rank from birth to two (2) years in which a child is born with two instinctual behaviors: crying and sucking which represent conditioned behaviors and after a few period it gain little competence in representing environment by using images, bubbling or other symbols, later as a gradual process the child became able to distinguish between various objects and experiences.

Preoperational stage of 2-7 years is the second stage according to Piaget. Preoperational means not operational. That is to say at this age a child is not able to perform in reverse. Piaget devised this stage into two sub-periods.

I.        Pre-conceptual thinking (3-4 years)

At this stage a child has no concept of a class; sometimes he will often confuse a cow for a goat. He fails to use deductive reasoning where you move from general to particular or inductive reasoning where you move from particular to general.

This stage is also characterized by language development. Children even use symbols in play, pretending, for example, that a book pushed across the floor is a car.

Children at this age are egocentric, that is viewing the world entirely from one’s own perspective, for example they hide their faces against a wall, covering their eyes although they are still in plain view.

If they can’t see they think no body else will be able to see them.

II.        Intuitive thought(5-7 years)

At this sub stage of preoperational stage a child is unable to understand the principle of conservation. the child here fails to use logical rules of reasoning, for example, when two balls “X” and  ”Y” are presented to him he may say they are equal because they are all round. And when one  (X) is transformed into rectangle here the child says X has more matter because it is longer. Therefore the preoperational stage is characterized mainly by development of language, symbolic thinking as well as egocentric thinking.

The third stage is concrete operational stage age which rank from 8-11 years. The key feature of this stage is the ability to order, combine and dissociate numbers and establish environmental correspondences of the number.

The actions of a child are characterized by reversibility thus in the case of clay balls, the child could use perceptual reasoning by pointing out the fact that nothing was added or removed from any of the balls.

The reasoning of the child at this stage is still tied to objects capable of evocation and this called concrete operation, the children make important advances in their logical thought (capabilities) and a loss of egocentrism.

Lastly is formal operational stage from the age of 12-15 years. At this stage the child can deal with propositional logic or hypothetical reasoning as opposed to real, hence concrete objects, the child can reason about the future here the thinking of child characterized by scientific reasoning where the child hence to observe the laws of cause and effects. They also deal with the logic of the argument or problem independent of the matter concerned.

SITUATION OF PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN TANZANIA

The following are the situation that prevails in Tanzania:

   The curriculum sets nursery school to be optional.

   Teachers and curriculum developers expose kind of materials beyond the child’s stage.

   Language problem or language background.

   Curriculum containing foreign contents.

 No enough motivation and reinforcement between teachers and learners.

   Poor learning and teaching environment and material supply.

   Teaching is more theoretical than practical

 Learners are denied the chance to participate fully in decision making.

This later can have the direct negative repercussion in good academic performance in Tanzania.

APPLICATION OF PIAGET’S THEORY TO IMPROVE ACADEMIC PERFORMANCE IN PUBLIC SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN TANZANIA

After the challenges facing Tanzanian public secondary schools teaching and learning processes, the Piaget theory of cognitive development have the positive effect in transforming it. The challenges appearing in teaching and learning in Tanzanian secondary  schools, the Piaget theory is going to mitigate and improve them when is practiced in accordance of his ideas so as to improve the lesson academic performance.

Piaget theory of cognitive development advocated that during intuitive stage in development of intelligence is when a child/children able to differentiate shape, colors, size as well as to connect dices to get different objects/shapes like triangles, car toys: hence when he/she will be in secondary school level at formal stage (11 years and above) he/she can able to master well different parts of disciplines, for instance Pythagoras theorem in Mathematics. So the children in Tanzanian public secondary schools should be exposed first to nursery schools where they can access the salient knowledge at the right time.

The theory urges teachers as well as curriculum developers to expose or teach kind of materials requiring thinking/cognition according to the appropriate stage/age of the learner or child so as to improve their curiosity, creativity and motivation. The theory influenced fully what to expose to a learner vis-à-vis the appropriate age. This also has a diverse repercussion when the learner meets secondary school below the age of formal operational period when the child’s mind occupied by hypothetical reasoning. For instance you can find so many children below 7 years in primary schools that are below the age of concrete stage of development which according to the theory- the child is not yet developed mental reasoning.

The reformation of the curriculum is indispensable in Tanzania teaching the learner what is not relevant to the environment which poses difficulty in the whole process of teaching and learning. According to Omari I M. (2006:137) “any mental act became knowledge if the learner can repeat the operation and interprets the problem situation in his own words”. Learning is effective when the learners are taught what is connected with their already known objects and environment. With this, learner can not be easily assimilate and accommodate the information taught. The teaching of glaciations in Tanzania schools for instance, is not relevant and therefore the topic should be omitted.

The theory advocates that the development of language starts soon during preoperational stage of development at 2 to 7 years which later have an effect in learning. Tanzanian public secondary education should respect the learner’s language, which is very contrary to what is practiced in our secondary schools. For example in Tanzania the learner suddenly changes the medium of instructions from Swahili to English, immediately as they enter in form one, which can stir up the mind of the learner. When so respected, in Tanzania, the academic performance will improve.

Parents should encourage the learner’s intellectual process by giving them advice because: this is the critical stage as far as formal operational stage is seriously concerned. According to Piaget this children is when they can reason about the future, hypothetical reasoning as opposed to reality. Parents have to motivate children in this stage due to that they are fully occupied by numerous questions like reasoning the future.

Piaget theory suggests that there should be a flexible dialogue between the teacher and the learner so that the teacher can understand the thinking capacity of the learner and later discover the learner’s problem and help him/her as he /she moves along. With this view, therefore, students should be given opportunity to contribute their views. This is because students especially in secondary schools have developed ability to think critically, since they are not empty buckets, they have mental capacities of creating an arguments’.

According to Malin T. & Birch A. (1988), Piaget recognizes the role of play in learning-Piaget’s theory of play. Rich play challenges the child and stimulate more complex activity involving the child’s fullest capacities. Most of Tanzania public secondary schools do not value the role of play in schools, one of the roles of play is to present the “real world” feedback: that is the child is able to asses his/her own progress without referring to any one else. Therefore the Ministry of Education & Vocational Training should make sure that each school has sports ground, sports facilities and sports also should also be given priority in the general school time table.

Teaching is more theoretical than practical. Piaget emphasizes more practical learning than theoretical learning. The students should be taught to learn through observation and then imitation because teaching through practical helps the learner to come up with enough concepts and hence be able to understand and specialize in a particular faculty. For example when a student is guided by the teacher to make a sample of solution starch like cassava and then mix it with two or three droplets of iodine solution, the blue black coloration will occur and hence to confirm that the sample solution consists of starch, Therefore public learning institutions should have enough practical facilities including laboratories with enough apparatus and electricity to ensure the best academic performance.

The teaching should consider students/learners to encourage creativity from grass root level to the most advanced level, for example in Tanzania public secondary school there is many subjects which make the student fail to develop their interests. For stance the students whose interest is politics yet is forced to study science, this will discourage the student to archive his or her interest, hence according to Paige’s theory of cognitive development for effective performance the student must be taught according to their interests.

Another points is that, students in Tanzania public secondary school should be taught religion and ethical value so as to shape them to be submissive and patriotic in education system   and country development. This will help the learners to behave morally as Jean Piaget suggest that in a formal stage where children are able to distinguish abstract things hence children will be able to know what is right or wrong, for example in most Tanzania public secondary schools religion is not taught as a result most of the students act immorally like engaging in abortion and drug abuse just because they are not taught the morals of their society and hence being affected in their academic development.

CONCLUSION

Conclusively ,  different policies  which  are  being  enacted  for   Tanzanian  public  schools  are  good,  but  poor  implementation   and  enforcement  of  these  policies  contribute  much  to  poor academic  performance.  On  the  other  hand  it  is  obviously  that,  for the  quality  education  in  Tanzanian  public secondary schools  to  match  with  that  of the known  developed  countries ,  effective  teaching   should  be  done.  Teachers  should  be  well  motivated  by  giving  them  enough  salary,  enough teaching  and  learning  materials  should  be  provided  and  construction  of  well  developed  curriculum  according  to  the  age  of  the  learners.  In  addition   to  that,  the  government  needs  to have  well  trained  teachers  with  psychological  knowledge  who  can  apply  it  from  the  grass root  level   (or  kindergarten  level)  to  the  higher  learning  level  and  then  observing   Piaget`s  theories  of   teaching  and  learning  so  as  to rise  up  academic  performance  in  Tanzanian  public  secondary schools.

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REFERENCES

Bernstein A. D. at el, (2000), Psychology, Houghton Mifflin Company; Boston New York.

Feldman R. S. (1996), Understanding Psychology, McGraw Hill; USA.

Malim T. and Birch A. (1988), Introductory Psychology, Palgrave; New York.

Omari I. M. (2006), Education Psychology for Teachers, Oxford University Press; London.

Woolfolk A. E. (1990), Education Psychology, Prentice-Hall Ink; USA.