Child and Adolescent Development and Learning Theories
Child and Adolescent Development and Learning Theories
This domain tests whether you can read a learner's behaviour against a theory and adjust instruction accordingly. Items are usually scenario-based: a child does X, which stage or principle explains it, and what should the teacher do?
Core rules
- Piaget (cognitive constructivism): sensorimotor (0–2, object permanence), preoperational (2–7, egocentrism, animism, no conservation), concrete operational (7–11, conservation, classification, seriation - needs concrete objects), formal operational (11+, abstract and hypothetical reasoning). Mechanisms: schema, assimilation, accommodation, equilibration.
- Vygotsky (social constructivism): learning precedes development; the ZPD is the gap between what a learner does alone and what they do with help; scaffolding (Wood, Bruner and Ross) is temporary support, faded as competence grows; private speech becomes inner speech.
- Erikson (psychosocial): trust v mistrust, autonomy v shame, initiative v guilt, industry v inferiority, identity v role confusion in adolescence - the key stage for JHS and SHS.
- Kohlberg (moral): pre-conventional (reward and punishment), conventional (approval, law and order), post-conventional (universal principles).
- Others: Bandura (modelling, self-efficacy), Bruner (enactive–iconic–symbolic, spiral curriculum, discovery), Skinner (reinforcement), Maslow (needs before learning), Bronfenbrenner (ecological systems), Gardner (multiple intelligences).
Worked example
'A five-year-old insists that a tall thin glass holds more water than a short wide one, although she watched the pour.' Reasoning: she is in Piaget's preoperational stage - she centres on one dimension (height) and cannot conserve. The teacher should not argue; she should offer repeated hands-on pouring and comparison, because conservation is built through concrete experience, not explanation.
Traps that cost marks
- Attributing the ZPD to Piaget, or 'learning precedes development' to Piaget.
- Expecting formal operational reasoning from a seven-year-old.
- Treating Kohlberg's stages as fixed ages rather than patterns of moral reasoning.
- Reducing Bandura to reinforcement - modelling and self-efficacy are the point.