Piaget And Vygotsky Critical Analysis

This article aims to explore Piaget’s cognitive development theory and Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory. Piaget explicated people fundamentally improve their thinking in stage at distinct periods. In terms of Vygotsky’s sociocultural cognitive theory, it is inevitable to investigate the correlation between social interaction and individual cognitive development, the role of cultural tools in mental process, and the zone of proximal development(ZPD).

In light of Piaget’s theory, there are four elements proposed to elaborate people gradually endeavor to interpret and interact with the world. To be precise, biological maturation, activity, social experience, and equilibration impinge on the development of thinking (Piaget,1970). In this regard, he came up with the view that people inherit two basic tendencies in thinking, namely organization and adaptation. Organization refers to constant arranging experience and information into psychosocial structure. Concerning adaptation, people are born to adjust the environment.

One of Piaget’s key views was stages of cognitive development, he divided cognitive development into separate stages as follows: sensorimotor stage, preoperational stage, concrete operational stage, and formal operational stage. It was hypothesized

As for Piaget, interaction with peers is more effective than those with people carrying higher skills and capabilities. The reason is that peers’ ability is almost equivalent with each other. So that it is not stressful for people to express different views. Consequently, cognitive development is promoted by interaction with peers through cognitive conflicts. On the contrary, cognitive development is motivated by interaction with people such as teachers and parents in Vygotsky’s theory (Vygotsky,1978). He claimed that individuals are likely to gain more cognitive functions with appropriate assistance and