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Do stages belong at the center of developmental theory? A commentary on Piaget's stages
Abstract
Feldman seeks to align his theoretical project with Piaget’s ‘‘secret ambition’’ as expressed in this quotation. He sensibly suggests that Piaget’s four broad stages of psychological development should be re-articulated in light of ‘‘our best current understanding of how cognitive development proceeds from birth through early
adulthood’’ (p. 4). He wants to ensure that these stages remain at the core of the psychological analysis of development, seeking to amend Piaget’s original formulation by bringing about some needed theoretical repair work. We applaud Feldman’s efforts to take Piaget’s deep analysis seriously and improve upon it and note that many other scholars share this broad goal. We agree that the theoretical issues Feldman highlights are central to an understanding of cognitive development in general and developmental stages in particular—including reflective abstraction, figurative and operative knowledge, taking of consciousness, stage transitions and emergence, structure d’ensemble, variability, and within-stage sequences. However, we find Feldman’s formulation of stages in terms of these issues to be neither coherent nor consistent.
... Although the response to this question is highly controversial in developmental psychology (see Alexander & Langer, 1990;Bart, 2004;Campbell & Bickhard, 1986;Collins, 1982;Dawson-Tunik et al., 2004;Feldman, 2004;Goswami, 2001;Inhelder & De Caprona, 1997;Karmiloff-Smith, 1992Müller et al., 2009a;Youniss, 1995), we argue, in this section, for the existence of developmental stages as useful heuristics to chart developmental change over time. Developmental stages lie at the heart of well-known developmental theories, such as Piaget's (1983a) theory of cognitive development, Kohlberg's (1984) theory of moral development, Erikson's (1959) theory of psychosocial development, Commons' (2008) model of hierarchical complexity, and so forth. ...
... What leads to developmental changedhow one explains the passage from one stage, level, and so forth, to the next, is the most controversial and important issue in developmental psychology ( Beilin, 1994;Dawson-Tunik et al., 2004;Feldman & Fowler, 1997;Johnson & Munakata, 2005;Piaget, 1985Piaget, , 2001Overton & Lerner, 2012Scholnick, Nelson, Gelman, & Miller, 1999;Siegler & Jenkins, 1989;Valsiner, 1985). We think that this controversy persists because of: (a) the plethora of approaches to psychological development (Miller, 2010); (b) the way one conceives of developmental change ( Overton, 1998;Overton & Lerner, 2012); (c) the type of explanation (e.g., functional, structural) that developmental psychologists are primarily looking for (Piaget, 1968); (d) the empirical method one uses for assessing developmental change ( Siegler & Crowley, 1991); and (e) the received view of Piaget's theory ( Chapman, 1988). ...
... Although stage structure has proved its value as a heuristic for describing change across a wide range of ages, critics have questioned the empirical and psychological reality of stages. Indeed, rigorous investigations typically reveal a more complex picture than formal stage theory suggests (e.g., Brainerd, 1978;Flavell, 1971a;Dawson-Tunik et al., 2004;Fischer & Granott, 1995;Flavell et al., 2002;Siegler & Alibali, 2005;Smith & Thelen, 1994). ...
Under the leadership of its founding editor, Dante Cicchetti, Development and Psychopathology has been recognized for decades as the foremost journal integrating developmental theory and clinical research programs. Contributors have often highlighted the implications of attachment theory and research for understanding developmental processes and pathways, and as a testing ground for intervention strategies. In this paper we reflect on the strengths and limitations of the traditional developmental perspective. We suggest that behavioral, cognitive, and emotional development are better understood as a process of bricolage (construction within constraints). This perspective is illustrated in an analysis of change mechanisms, and behavioral and representational changes, in attachment development from pre-locomotor infancy to later adulthood. Special emphasis is placed on ordinary learning and cognitive processes, rather than those specific to attachment, and on the roles that socialization pressures and changing circumstances play in shaping the course of attachment development.
... She may find herself deliberating on the importance of this content as a historical context for mod- ern learning theories in relation to the empirical and theo- retical support for these stages. She may conclude that because of the controversy around the existence of these stages (Dawson-Tunik, Fischer, & Stein, 2004) she will focus her lesson on Piaget's conceptualization of adapta- tion, organization, and equilibration, which served as the basis for much of modern constructivism (Flavell, 1996;Lourenço, 2016). Thus, to determine an epistemic aim for her learners, Dr. Jones engages in epistemic cognition about the content to be taught, comparing the content to her epistemic ideal that empirical support supersedes historical context, and subsequently renders a decision about what students should know. ...
Epistemic cognition represents aspects of teachers' thinking focused on issues related to knowledge, which may have particular relevance for classroom assessment practices given that teachers must discern what their students know and then use this information to inform instruction. We present a model of epistemic cognition in teaching with a focus on teachers' classroom assessment practices. We argue that teachers' epistemic cognition is inherently more complex than current models developed for learners. Further, we suggest that teachers' epistemic cognition can be supported through the development of reflexivity as an epistemic virtue and that the 3R-EC framework for reflexivity represents one protocol for engaging in reflexive practice that targets epistemic cognition. We close the article with implications for teacher development and with recommendations for further theory and research.
... In one instance, it is described as a "stepping back" to reflect on the values underlying leader-member exchange. In another, they suggest that "meaning making" is foundational to a The term "stages" is often contentious (see: Dawson-Tunik, Fischer, & Stein, 2004;Bidell & 3 Fischer, 1992). Use of this term here is not meant to imply a particular developmental model. ...
Problem: A range of developmental models have been applied in research on leader development. Such applications often advocate “whole” person approaches to leader growth. They seek to expand social, cognitive, and behavioral capacities, and often reference perspective taking. Many of these approaches define developmental levels in terms of specific content, ideas, and domain-specific capacities. In some models, people are said to be at a given level because they demonstrate a certain kind of perspective taking, and they are also expected to demonstrate that kind of perspective taking because they are at a given level. This circularity largely prevents the investigation of how different capacities change together (or not) over time.
Purpose: Using an approach that avoids this kind of circularity it was possible to examine perspectival skills and developmental level independently. I tested three hypotheses about the relationship between change in developmental level and change in perspective taking, seeking, and coordination. It was predicted that these constructs would exhibit patterns of synchronous and asynchronous change, with the former being most prominent.
Method: The sample consisted of 598 civil leaders who completed a developmental assessment called the LecticalTM Decision Making Assessment (LMDA) up to 4 times over a 9-month leadership development program. The LDMAs yielded separate scores for Lectical level—a domain-general index of hierarchical complexity—and perspective taking, seeking, and coordination. Perspective taking and seeking scores were disaggregated into component scores for salience, accessibility, and sophistication. Ten scores were analyzed with Latent growth modeling techniques. Four types of models were fit to these data: (a) Univariate latent growth curve models, (b) multivariate parallel process models, (c) univariate latent difference scores models, and (d) bivariate latent difference scores models.
Results: All hypotheses were partially confirmed. Change trajectories for most scores were non linear, characterized by dips and spurts. The rate of change in perspective scores was not related to rate of change for Lectical score or initial Lectical score. Initial Lectical score was positively related to initial perspective scores. Lectical score was a leading indicator of subsequent change in seeking and seeking salience. Lectical change positively impacted seeking change, whereas Lectical score positively impacted seeking salience change.
Conclusions: The relationship between change in these constructs is more complex than typically portrayed. Evidence suggests that these variables change more independently of each other than claimed in earlier research. Patterns of asynchronous change were three times more common than synchronous change, and Lectical score predicted change in only some aspects of perspectival capacity.Implications for theory, method, and pedagogy, along with study limitations and avenues for future research are discussed.
... DST utilizes concepts of chaos and emergence to design mathematical models to represent the growth and change of developing systems. For over a decade the field of MBE has utilized the framework of DST to model learning development as a dynamic complex system (Abraham & Shaw, 1992;Dawson-Tunik, Fischer, & Stein, 2004;Fischer & Bidell, 2006;Fischer & Rose, 2001;Fischer & Silvern, 1985). ...
I am excited to present this first installment of a new series in MBE that explores the teaching brain. The goal of the series is to facilitate a transition in the lens on teaching from an empty vessel to a phenomenon as dynamic, variable and context-dependent as learning. This transformation will likely push all of us to reevaluate our understanding and research on teaching. Over the coming year, each issue will provide several articles that seek to shed light on a different aspect of this burgeoning new area of research. This issue opens the series with a piece designed to lay out the conceptual framework and evidence base for a new way to think about teaching: the teaching brain. Next, Michael Chazan gives an archaeological grounding for the existence of teaching in the earliest ancestors of Homo sapiens. Sidney Strauss and Margalit Ziv then describes how teaching is a fundamental human cognitive ability. Together, these articles begin to create a paradigm shift in the definition of teaching. We look forward to an exciting journey.
... Empirical investigations and theoretical critiques of Piaget's theory spanning at least 40 years (see for example Braine, 1962;Feldman, 1980;Egan, 1983;Dawson-Tunik et al, 2004, as a random selection from across the four decades),[1] in addition to the general thrust of research in developmental psychology, have failed to provide support for his ideas. The universality of the stages, the invariance of the order of development, even the details of what children can and cannot do during any particular stage, have all been questioned, tested and disproved. ...
Research evidence has demonstrated that pedagogical techniques variously known as discovery learning, problem-based learning and constructivism are less effective than explicit instruction, especially when applied to the teaching of novice learners. Nonetheless these ineffective techniques have many devotees and re-enter the educational arena 're-badged' after each empirical revelation of their deficiencies. This article argues that constructivism and its pedagogical relatives are continually 'rediscovered' because they accord with deeply held beliefs about the nature of human beings. The origins of these ideas are traced to the writings of Rousseau and the Progressivist thinkers of the nineteenth century and the ways in which the misreading of theorists, such as Piaget, provide 'scientific support' for these is explored.
The main goal of this article is to make a critical review about the classical structuralist paradigm of cognitive development. Given this goal, we firstly analyze some of the core concepts of this paradigm, mainly those ones that suggest certain "stillness" when they try to explain the development of psychological functions. Secondly, we propose an alternative approach based on Kurt Fischer cognitive model of development, as long as we consider it an example of the dynamic development perspective. Finally, we highlight the theoretical implications of the dynamic model, proposing it as an alternative to confront the explanatory difficulties of the classical paradigm.
A aprendizagem conceitual viabiliza a lacuna que existe entre o comportamento do iniciante para o iniciado (ou mais experiente), permitindo a articulação de um conhecimento estruturado ao desenvolvimento de competências em novas situações na Engenharia tanto para um domínio técnico quanto para um humanista. Embora exista informação substanciosa sobre o desenvolvimento de expertise ao suporte do ensino de Engenharia, este é amplamente direcionado às características do status do novato e do experiente; há uma lacuna no que diz respeito aos mecanismos de metacognição responsáveis pela condução de um estado de comportamento para outro; além disso, há lacunas sobre a aprendizagem conceitual no domínio humanista, onde o engenheiro é visto não só como um tecnologista, mas um expert social que precisa não só gerir recursos e pessoas, mas também integrar conhecimentos de outras áreas além das exatas. Das teorias cognitivas que concorrem com suas propostas de mecanismos explicativos, identificam-se cinco: equlibração, theory-theory, framework-theory, ontological view e knowledge in pieces. Dessa forma, a questão central de pesquisa que se estabelece, sob a perspectiva dessas teorias cognitivo-construtivistas é: quais são os mecanismos viabilizadores da aprendizagem conceitual no estudante de engenharia? Com o Objetivo Geral de verificar quais são esses mecanismos, defende-se a tese de que esses mecanismos de cognição viabilizadores têm a sua explicação parcialmente elaborada através do eixo Equilibração, proposto por Jean Piaget. No intuito de verificar empiricamente o funcionamento desses mecanismos, realizou-se um estudo de caso com 18 estudantes de Engenharia, matriculados regularmente na disciplina de Introdução à Engenharia, durante dois semestres letivos, a fim de acompanhar os seus progressos. Nesta disciplina, que serviu de contexto para se trabalhar com maior ênfase sobre o domínio humanista, os estudantes calouros foram solicitados a estabelecer conexões teóricas sobre os conceitos de Ciência, Arte, Tecnologia e Engenharia no intuito de exercitar habilidades de pensamento crítico. Coletaram-se os dados por meio de entrevistas semiestruturadas gravadas (antes, durante e após o período da realização da atividade) e analisados por meio do método da análise de conteúdo de Bardin. Os resultados dos progressos obtidos pelos estudantes em suas articulações foram avaliados e comparados às proposições teóricas formuladas em termos das configurações de conhecimento inicias, finais e das regularidades produzidas pelos mecanismos, a partir dos cinco eixos teóricos. Constatou-se haver convergência para o funcionamento dos mecanismos propostos pelo eixo da Equilibração, conferindo-lhe aplicabilidade à explicação da aprendizagem conceitual do estudante de engenharia. Entendeu-se, portanto, o eixo da equilibração como uma alternativa viável ao enfoque sobre as transformações que ocorrem durante a aprendizagem conceitual dos estudantes, que lhes permitem a mudança de estados de comportamento do novato em direção ao iniciado (ou mais experiente).
The paper is based on a broader study of the use of discourses of transgenderism among sex-reassignment evaluators in Sweden. In this paper we explore how a developmental-psychological discourse was reproduced by the evaluators in their discursive negotiations of transsexualism. We found that maturity and authenticity are two key concepts that illuminate how the developmental-psychological discourse both clashes with and works together with a medical-pathological discourse of transgenderism. The developmental-psychological discourse can help to produce a definition of transgenderism that is more diverse regarding male/female dichotomies. This in turn can create a wider range of possible subject positions for patients who are seeking help. The developmental-psychological discourse also imposes additional limitations regarding the subject positions available to transgender persons through a demand for maturity and for having gone through all of the steps in the expected identity development process. The developmental-psychological repertoire casts transgenderism as an identity crisis. © The Author(s) 2013 Reprints and permissions: sagepub.co.uk/journalsPermissions.nav.
Studying and understanding infancy has always been a major challenge. Daniel Stern (1985), in his book, The Interpersonal World of the Infant, expresses this concern thus:
Since we can never crawl inside an infant’s mind, it may seem pointless to imagine what an infant might experience. Yet that is at the heart of what we really want and need to know. What we imagine infant experience to be like shapes our notions of who the infant is. These notions make up our working hypotheses about infancy (p. 4).
Professor Kenny has taken on an immense and daunting task - to attempt, through multiple kaleidoscopic lenses, to articulate infant experience. She states at the beginning of Chapter 1 that the two central constructs in her text are ‘infancy and psychoanalysis’. Yet this remarkable book offers so much more than that, covering as it does the major theories and ideas from the past century or more that have informed our thinking and behaviour concerning infants: how they should be known, understood and cared for so that they set off on the best possible trajectory for the rest of their lives. The intention is to promote high quality care for infants by setting out, for inspection and debate, the diverse views, sometimes influential despite the lack of quality evidence, in this vast and controversial field. Parents know only too well what strong emotions issues related to infant care elicit and how everyone around them, including total strangers, will forcefully offer advice and instructions. Many readers of this book will, just as I did, want to argue about some of the author’s contentions, but will then pause and re-examine their own views and identify implicit cherished, yet anachronistic beliefs that are no longer supported by the evidence.
A book that encourages and nourishes informed discussion at all levels of society is welcome but rarely found. I was particularly pleased that this text is not aimed at an academic readership alone, but is clearly accessible to interested readers in the community and all relevant professions. It provides information and guidance about bringing up babies to all those who have infants, study infants, teach about infancy, make policy with respect to infant welfare, or who work medically or therapeutically with parents.
The author demonstrates not only an impressive intellectual capacity and excellent communication skills, but a breadth and depth of knowledge about infant development that she pours into this volume. There are few, if any texts to my knowledge that have so eruditely spanned and integrated the psychological, psychoanalytic, psychiatric and developmental neuroscience literatures to bring us such a rich and varied, but always coherent perspective on infant development. The comprehensiveness of the treatment and the erudition in the argumentation will ensure an enduring and useful life for this volume.
A flexible, creative, sustainable society has to be based on – and will indeed be measurable by – the way it ensures that children are provided with a physically and psychosocially healthy environment in which to develop both before and after birth. The foundation for lifelong health and wellbeing is laid down very early, with our experiences at those stages being indelibly inscribed into our bodies and brains. In the last decade or two, much has been researched and written on this topic.
I believe that this text will promote lively discussion and debate on this critical theme – what is an infant and what should the optimal environment provide – and will thus enhance our knowledge and competence in the field. This can only be a good thing for infants and their many caregivers.
Professor Bryanne Barnett AM
School of Psychiatry, University of New South Wales
Perinatal and Infant Psychiatrist, St John of God Health Care, NSW
Karitane Early Parenting Services
Australia
23rd June, 2012
Skill theory provides tools for predicting developmental sequences and synchronies in any domain at any point in development by integrating behavioral and cognitive-developmental concepts. Cognitive development is explained by skill structures called "levels," together with transformation rules relating these levels to each other. The transformation rules specify the developmental steps by which a skill moves gradually from one level of complexity to the next. At every step in these developmental sequences, the individual controls a particular skill. Skills are gradually transformed from sensory-motor actions to representations and then to abstractions. The transformations produce continuous behavioral changes; but across the entire profile of a person's skills and within highly practiced task domains, a stagelike shift in skills occurs as the person develops to an optimal level. The theory suggests a common framework for integrating developmental analyses of cognitive, social, language, and perceptual-motor skills and certain behavioral changes in learning and problem solving. (6 p ref)
Traditionally, cognitive development has been viewed either as the acquisition of knowledge through simple and highly general learning procedures (learning theory views) or as radical restructurings of knowledge (stage theory views). There is, however, a different view of cognitive development in which the emphasis is on the formal properties of cognitive structures and processes that remain invariant throughout development. It is argued that much of cognitive development is guided by complex sets of constraints, that specific sets are tailored for particular cognitive domains, and that the constraints sharply limit the class of naturally learnable structures in each domain. Theoretical reasons and recent advances in research are provided for such a view, which is also contrasted to other work in cognitive development. Four cognitive domains are considered in detail: ontological knowledge, number concepts, deductive reasoning, and natural language syntax. (76 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Two experiments tested 108 children (1.5–7.5 yrs old) on a predicted, 8-step sequence of the development of social roles. Performance on this sequence was related to 2 measures of more spontaneous behavior. Nearly all Ss fit the predicted sequence. By 2 yrs of age, most Ss made a doll act as an independent agent. The majority of 3-yr-olds made a doll carry out several behaviors fitting the role of doctor. At age 4 or 5, most Ss developed the capacity to show a social role, making a doctor doll interact with a patient doll. The intersection of social roles for 2 agents appeared at about age 6: A man doll could be both doctor and father to a patient who was also his daughter. In their spontaneous behavior, early preschoolers almost always showed the highest step that they were capable of, but beginning with the step for social roles, late preschoolers seldom showed their highest step. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
A dynamic systems model is proposed on the basis of a general developmental mechanism adopted from the theories of J. Piaget and L. S. Vygotsky, more particularly a mechanism based on the concepts assimilation versus accommodation and actual development versus zone of proximal development. In the model, action and experience have a distributed effect on contents (skills, knowledge, rules, action patterns, etc.) ordered along an abstract developmental distance dimension. After a mathematical treatment of the model, an overview is given of empirical evidence on continuous and discontinuous change. The dynamic model is then applied to the classic Piagetian and the neo-Piagetian models, models of continuous and discontinuous domain-specific change, and to models of cognitive strategies, transitions, microdevelopment, and inter- and intraindividual variability. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
Hypothesized that a rudimentary capacity to impute internal states to self and to other emerges with the onset of communicative intentions. The ability to speak about mental states begins late in the 2nd yr and burgeons in the 3rd yr. Mothers of 30 28-mo-olds were asked to report child utterances containing 6 categories of internal-state words (perception, physiology, affect, volition/ability, cognition, and moral judgment/obligation). Of these, affect, cognition, and moral terms were less common than the others. Ss who applied a specific label to self and other tended to use it also to speak about nonpresent states. Use of a term for only self was more common than use for only other. Causal statements referred primarily to affect. Three categories of causal statements were identified: state change/maintenance, antecedents of states, and definitions of states in terms of other states, physical symptoms, and behaviors. Assessments of internal-state language that were obtained through maternal observation/report and directly from the child were highly correlated. (40 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this article an overview is given of traditional methodological approaches to stagewise cognitive developmental research. These approaches are evaluated and integrated on the basis of catastrophe theory. In particular, catastrophe theory specifies a set of common criteria for testing the discontinuity hypothesis proposed by Piaget. Separate criteria correspond to distinct methods used in cognitive developmental research. Such criteria are, for instance, the detection of spurts in development, bimodality of test scores, and increased variability of responses during transitional periods. When a genuine stage transition is present, these criteria are expected to be satisfied. A revised catastrophe model accommodating these criteria is proposed for the stage transition in cognitive development from the preoperational to the concrete operational stage.
The author uses a cognitive developmental approach to investigate educational conceptions, addressing the question, How does evaluative reasoning about education change over the course of cognitive development? The author conducted independent analyses of the developmental level and conceptual content of 246 interview performances of individuals aged 5 to 86 years. The developmental level of the interview performances was assessed with a content-general scoring system, the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System. A Rasch analysis of the results revealed 6 developmental levels and provided support for invariant sequence, developmental spurts and plateaus, and similar developmental patterns for childhood and adulthood levels. The results of the subsequent analysis of the propositional content of the same interview texts were used to produce qualitative descriptions of changes in evaluative reasoning about education across the 6 levels identified in the data. Finally, descriptions constructed in this way, although richer and less prone to reification, were shown to be conceptually analogous to the stage definitions produced by other cognitive developmental researchers. The implications of the method and findings are discussed.
This chapter provides an overview of a meta-Piagetian theory. The theory aspires to accommodate the architecture and development of human intelligence, mind, and reasoning. For reasons of convenience, from this point onwards, the chapter uses the term “mind” to refer to all of these three aspects of human knowing. As a theory about the architecture and the dynamics of the mind, it involves propositions, assertions, and hypotheses about (a) the structural organization of human knowledge acquisition and problem solving devices and capabilities, (b) the condition of these devices and capabilities at different ages, and (c) the causes and mechanisms which are responsible for their change along with age. The theory has originated in the Piagetian tradition. In addition, testing, in the psychometric tradition is based on the assumption that thought activity is organized along a number of specifiable ability dimensions which can be used to differentiate individuals. In turn, it is assumed that individual differences are signs indicating the boundaries between cognitive structures. Furthermore, the chapter provides the propositions of the theory about the structure of human mind.
Does human cognitive development advance through a series of broad and general stages? If so, the child's mind at any point in its development should seem quite consistent and similar across situations in its maturity level and general style. That is, it should be relatively "homogeneous" rather than "heterogeneous" at any given age. There appear to be factors and considerations that make for both heterogeneity and homogeneity in the child's cognitive life. As to heterogeneity, many cognitive items (concepts, skills, etc.) may develop independently; they may not assist each other's development and there may be no common mediator to assist their codevelopment. Likewise, mental heterogeneity may occur because human beings have evolved to cope with certain cognitive tasks earlier or more easily than others. Intraindividual differences in aptitudes and experiences could also produce considerable heterogeneity. As to homogeneity, the child's information-processing capacity may impose an upper limit on how heterogeneous her mental level could be. There may also be more cognitive homogeneity (1) in the child's initial reaction to inputs than in her subsequent management of them; (2) at the beginning and end of an acquisitional sequence than in the middle of it; (3) in spontaneous, everyday cognition than in formal task or test situations; (4) in some cognitive domains than in others; (5) in some children than in others. It was concluded that cognitive development might appear more general-stage-like than many of us believed, if only we knew how and where to look.
Microdevelopment is the process of change in abilities, knowledge and understanding during short time-spans. This book presents a new process-orientated view of development and learning based on recent innovations in psychology research. Instead of characterising abilities at different ages, researchers investigate processes of development and learning that evolve through time and explain what enables progress in them. Four themes are highlighted: variability, mechanisms that create transitions to higher levels of knowledge, interrelations between changes in the short-term scale of microdevelopment and the crucial effect of context. Learning and development are analysed in and out of school, in the individual's activities and through social interaction, in relation to simple and complex problems and in everyday behaviour and novel tasks. With contributions from the foremost researchers in the field Microdevelopment will be essential reading for all interested in cognitive and developmental science.
Development and learning involve similar changes in the organization of behavior, within different time frames. A potentially powerful way to relate learning and development is through the study of microdevelopment, in which short-term changes are analyzed as developmental functions. Research on microdevelopment has been stymied, however, by assumptions that have restricted analysis to nonecological, one-dimensional concepts. Traditional paradigms assume erroneously that a solitary individual develops along a single linear pathway. Moving beyond these one-dimensional concepts opens up microdevelopment as an exciting and fundamental arena for research. Learning and problem solving are distributed socially among members of small ensembles. Communication among members externalizes much of the process of microdevelopment, providing extensive information for researchers. Growth occurs along multiple concurrent strands, forming a developmental web; each strand is in turn composed of multiple concurrent threads. In different strands and threads, individuals and ensembles function at widely different developmental levels, and they grow in diverse nonlinear dynamic shapes. An example of problem solving involving an unfamiliar device illustrates how adding these complexities in fact simplifies microdevelopment research and theory.Copyright © 1995 S. Karger AG, Basel
The major purpose of this paper is to introduce the notion of the order of hierarchical complexity of tasks. Order of hierarchical complexity is a way of conceptualizing information in terms of the power required to complete a task or solve a problem. It is orthogonal to the notion of information coded as bits in traditional information theory. Because every task (whether experimental or everyday) that individuals engage in has an order of hierarchical complexity associated with it, this notion of hierarchical complexity has broad implications both within developmental psychology and beyond it in such fields as information science. Within developmental psychology, traditional stage theory has been criticized for not showing that stages exist as anything more thanad hocdescriptions of sequential changes in human behavior (Kohlberg & Armon, 1984; Gibbs, 1977, 1979; Broughton, 1984). To address this issue, Commons and Richards (1984a,b) argued that a successful developmental theory should address two conceptually different issues: (1) the hierarchical complexity of the task to be solved and (2) the psychology, sociology, and anthropology of such task performance and how that performance develops. The notion of the hierarchical complexity of tasks, introduced here, formalizes the key notions implicit in most stage theories, presenting them as axioms and theorems. The hierarchical complexity of tasks has itself been grounded in mathematical models (Coombs, Dawes, & Tversky, 1970) and information science (Lindsay & Norman, 1977). The resultant definition of stage is that it is the highest order of hierarchical complexity on which there is successful task performance. In addition to providing an analytic solution to the issue of what are developmental stages, the theory of hierarchical complexity presented here allows for the possibility within science of scaling the complexity in a form more akin to intelligence.
In developing understanding of social roles, preschool children proceed from an initial awareness of single behavioral categories to the ability to comprehend, first, simple relationships between categories, and second, complex systems of categories. At each developmental level, children show characteristic modes of distortion when faced with situations requiring skills more advanced than they possess. At the level of understanding single behavioral categories, preschool children demonstrate the process of "globbing," in which several categories are mixed. At the level of comprehending simple relationships between categories, preschool children's behavior is characterized by stereotyping based on social evaluations of categories. With respect to the level at which complex systems of categories are understood, typical distortions involve rigid or literal adherence to particulars of a social rule or category. However, it is important not to misinterpret this developmental sequence. Children do not show the same level across all situations; the degree of structure or support provided by the immediate context influences the expression of children's awareness of social categories in the same general situation. In addition, the degree of disparity between developmental levels shown in spontaneous contexts seems to increase in the late preschool years. (RH)
No abstract available. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
argue that logic is insufficient to characterize higher-order reasoning about all problems / instead, assumptions about knowledge play a crucial role, particularly in ill-structured problem solving
a useful way of analyzing these assumptions is through the reflective judgment model, which describes the development of knowledge assumptions
second, we suggest that an interactional approach is required to understand the development of thinking skills / development can be adequately understood only through analysis of how the person and the environment collaborate in development
describe a model of the development of reflective judgment based on skill theory / this model leads to a conception of development that characterizes both the levels of development of a person's thinking and the range of variations in levels that each person normally shows (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
the Reflective Judgment model describes seven sets of assumptions about knowledge and related concepts of justification that adolescents and adults use when they reason about and resolve ill-structured problems in the intellectual domain
the nature and content of adult cognitive development / the relationship between the qualitative changes observed in the thinking of adults and more-traditional formulations of adult cognition, e.g., intelligence / in the past ten years, Reflective Judgment research has begun to address these issues / three of them will be discussed here / what does the model describe / what is the evidence for development in Reflective Judgment / what is the relationship between age and educational level and development in Reflective Judgment
a brief discussion of the relationship between formal operations and Reflective Judgment will be included (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)
In this paper, I compare three developmental assessment systems, employed to score a set of 152 interviews of engineering students: the Perry Scoring System (W. G. Perry, 1970), the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System (T. L. Dawson, 2004, 1/31/03), and the Lexical Abstraction Assessment System (LAAS; T. L. Dawson & M. Wilson, in press). Overall, the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System and Perry Scoring System agree with one another within the parameters of interrater agreement commonly reported for either one of the systems, and the Perry system and the LAAS agree with one another about as well as the LAAS and the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System, upon which the LAAS is based.
Kohlberg’s moral stage scale is but one of a number of “Piagetian” developmental scales proposed during the latter part of this century. Kohlberg claimed that his moral stages fulfilled the criteria for “hard” Piagetian stages—invariant sequence, qualitative change, and structured wholeness. He also argued that his scoring system measures a dimension of thought with a unique structure. To explore these contentions, we compare the concepts that define Kohlbergian stages with those associated with orders of hierarchical complexity as determined with the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System, a generalized content-independent stage-scoring system. We conclude that the sequence of conceptual development specified by Kohlberg generally matches the sequence identified with the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System, and that contract and authority concepts identified with a methodology that employs the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System match the concepts that define theoretically analogous Kohlbergian stages above Kohlberg’s stage 2. However, we argue that Kohlberg’s stages 1 and 2 do not accurately describe the development of moral concepts in young children.
The concept of epistemological development is useful in psychological assessment only insofar as instruments can be designed to measure it consistently, reliably, and without bias. In the psychosocial domain, most traditional stage assessment systems rely on a process of matching concepts in a scoring manual generated from a limited number of construction cases, and thus suffer from bias introduced by an over-dependence on particular content. In contrast, the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System (HCSS) employs criteria for assessing the hierarchical complexity of texts that are independent of specific conceptual content. This paper examines whether the HCSS and a conventional stage assessment system, Kohlberg’s Standard Issue Scoring System (SISS), measure the same dimension of performance. We scored 378 moral judgment interviews with both scoring systems. We then conducted a multidimensional partial credit analysis to determine the extent to which the two scoring systems assess the same dimension of performance. The disattenuated correlation between performance estimates on the SISS and HCSS is .92. Based on this and other evidence, we conclude that a single latent trait — hierarchical complexity — is the predominant dimension assessed by the two systems.
Incluye bibliografía e índice
In social psychological research the stage metaphor has fallen into disfavor due to concerns about bias, reliability, and validity. To address some of these issues, I employ a multidimensional partial credit analysis comparing moral judgment interviews scored with the Standard Issue Scoring System (SISS) (Colby and Kohlberg, 1987b), evaluative reasoning interviews scored with the Good Life Scoring System (GLSS) (Armon, 1984b), and Good Education interviews scored with the Hierarchical Complexity Scoring System (HCSS) (Commons, Danaher, Miller, and Dawson, 2000). A total of 209 participants between the ages of 5 and 86 were interviewed. The multidimensional model reveals that even though the scoring systems rely upon different criteria and the data were collected using different methods and scored by different teams of raters, the SISS, GLSS, and HCSS all appear to measure the same latent variable. The HCSS exhibits more internal consistency than the SISS and GLSS, and solves some methodological problems introduced by the content dependency of the SISS and GLSS. These results and their implications are elaborated.
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