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Re: Piaget and asundry



Hi all-
In response to Roger Pruitt, who writes:
*************************************************************
One of my colleagues here pointed out that the reason that Piaget is no
longer fashionable among physics people is that grant money for educational
research in this area is not easy to get.
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I suggest, first of all, that it is logically impossible to
prove that a theory of development, such as Piaget's, is correct. It
is, however, logically possible to falsify such a theory or to find
limitations on its usefulness.
Piagetan "theory" is attractive because we observe people in
real life who appear to be in "stages" as described in Piagetan
literature. The issue is whether we can use such observations to
improve our teaching skills.
Someone on this list, some time ago, brought to my attention
"The New Structuralism in Cognitive Development", Case and Edelstein,
Eds. (Karger press, 1993). I concluded, after reading the experimental
work reported in that book:
People do not develop in accordance with the Piagetan model;
they can regress or jump stages.
The same individual may appear to be in different stages
for different purposes.

I quote from the final summing-up of the book, a contribution by
Jacques Lautry:
The conclusion I draw is a sobering one. Although
neo-structuralist appraoches deviate from Piagetian theory
on certain dimensions, it is my believe that they still
remain, in their underly conception, unitary models of
cognitive development. This fact suggests that the
solution to a number of problems will continue to escape
them and can only be attained by a shift to a more
pluralistic, less centralized concept.


There is a Neo-Piagetan school that seems to be alive and well
and full of dissent. Pehaps, someday, that or a competing school
will give us the magic key for effective teaching. Until then,
we'll need to struggle along as best as we can.
Regards,
Jack