Lev Vygotsky

Beyond Piaget - Vygotsky Model

There is indeed no question that human children are affected by the cultures in which they grow up Links to an external site., and even more strongly affected by their family environments. Children internalize these social influences through their interactions with the adults who guide them in their problem-solving efforts.

Contrary to what Piaget posited with his stages of development, Vygotsky’s followers see a difference between what children can accomplish on their own and what they can do with the help of an adult. Vygotsky used the term “zone of proximal development” to denote the distance at any given time between what a child actually knows and what the child can learn under the supervision of an adult or through contact with other children.

To Piaget, the primary motivation for the process of human cognitive development came from inside the individual. His most famous metaphor for describing this idea was that children are “lone scientists Links to an external site.” who experiment with and explore the world. In contrast, for Vygotsky, the metaphor that best describes the primary source of development is that children are “little apprentices” who receive the help and support that they need from their teachers in learning situations. Thus, for Vygotsky, the development of cognition comes more from outside the individual than from inside.

A contemporary of Piaget was Lev Vygotsky. His work around cognitive development has also been instrumental for our understanding of how learning happens.
Piaget’s idea that all children go through fixed, sequential stages of development Links to an external site. has been the target of much criticism. According to Russian psychologist Lev Vygotsky, the development of human beings is too complex to be defined by such stages. Vygotsky, and others after him, accorded far more importance than Piaget did to the social and environmental influences Links to an external site. on cognitive development.