Intro to Piaget and Vygotsky
In an ever changing and growing world, education levels up with each passing year. Whether that be the introduction of technology (both the positive and negative aspects), new curriculums, and even a new teaching style, education is always evolving.
Two of the most notable figures in the world of education are Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Both men were psychologists but they held very different opinions regarding a child’s development, also known as cognitive development. Cognitive development is the period in which a child begins to develop the knowledge, problem solving abilities, and skills to help them further understand the world in which they live.
Piaget was a firm believer that there are four distinct stages in a child’s development: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, and finally formal operational. These stages worked very closely with a child’s age with the first stage, sensorimotor being connected with the ages 0 to 2 while the next stage, pre-operational continued from 2 to 7 and so forth.
Piaget believed that during the pre-operational stage (2-7 years old), children’s thinking was influenced only by how something looks instead of true logical thinking. Take two glasses of water as an example. There is one tall glass and another short glass. Both glasses have the same amount of water, but according to Piaget, a child in the pre-operational stage who only has the ability to see things at face value, would say the tall glass has more water.
Vygotsky on the other hand believed that childhood development did not work in stages. He created a different theory that did not include distinct stages, focusing more on a smooth ramp instead. He created a role in a child’s life called the More Knowledgeable Other (also known as MKO) who would help a child learn topics through sharing their own knowledge. The MKO could be a parent, teacher and even an older sibling, as long as they are more knowledgeable in a subject than the child.
Vygotsky also created what some might call the Goldilocks spot, called the Zone of Proximal Development, where children have just the right amount of challenge to succeed but not too much or too little challenge that they may feel frustrated or bored. On top of the MKO and the ZPD, Vygotsky had another idea of what cognitive development could look like. He introduced the idea of scaffolding where the MKO would actually share what they knew through hints, prompts and even encouragement to help the child complete a task in the ZPD.
Using the same example of the tall and short glasses of water, the MKO may hint to the child that both glasses have the same amount of water by pouring them out and showing them that the amount of water is actually the same.
Regardless of which method or belief is considered to be more accurate or true, both Piaget and Vygotsky had very important points to make and their impacts on the field of education will shine through forever.
Resources:
McLeod, S. (2025). Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory of cognitive development. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/vygotsky.html
McLeod, S. (2025, June 4). Piaget cognitive stages of development. Simply Psychology. https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html
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