Piaget vs Vygotsky

Piaget uses the Cognitive- Developmental approach , which researches cognitive development in the child's mind based on their own personal experience, rather than looking at daily situations or the impact of external settings; while Vygotsky uses the Socio-Cultural approach, which examines the environment and people around the child, as mentors and role models that shape the child's cognitive processes through the society and culture around them, and everyday situations.

 Piaget and Vygotsky's perspectives have vast differences yet share common denominators as well.

Piaget's theory uses functions, which are innate and consistent throughout the lifespan for everyone and build cognitive structures that change constantly as the child performs various activities, testing and exploring the world through changing schemes, or patterns, at every stage of development.

Organization, Adaptation, Assimilation, Accommodation, and Constructivism are all functions that guide human development.

The four periods of development which Piaget believe that all people experience in the same order: are the sensor-motor, preoperational, concrete operations and formal operations.

Vygotsky believes that it is the culture that shapes and determines the development of the child, since children get most of their knowledge and the tools of intellectual adaptation from the culture.

This is done initially through problem solving with others a.k.a the dialectical process, and the through the child's own Internalization of these tools of knowledge.

It is interesting to note that Vygotsky and Piaget lived during the same time period

...yet, they had a vastly different upbringing and education, which led them to very different theories.

While Piaget theorized that every child's thinking patterns and functioning follows the same structure of four stages of development, Vygotsky theorized that a child's thought process is mainly influenced by the society in which the child is raised.

Piaget believes that children individually build knowledge with their activities in the world, they understand by inventing.

Alternatively, Vygotsky believes that the origin of understanding is socially based.

The information on this page was based on an Essay that I wrote for a college class in Child Development.