Evaluation of Vygotsky

Q: Wood et al (1976) - The Effectiveness of Scaffolding

According to __Vygotsky__, scaffolding is the concept whereby a role model, such as a teacher or caregiver, provides a framework in which children can learn. __Wood et al.__ studied how effective this scaffolding was to support __Vygotsky’s__ theory.

Q: Evaluation of Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

__Vygotsky’s__ work is foundational in the study of child cognitive development. The theory has many studies that provide evidence. But there are some limitations.

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Wood et al (1976) - The Effectiveness of Scaffolding

According to Vygotsky, scaffolding is the concept whereby a role model, such as a teacher or caregiver, provides a framework in which children can learn. Wood et al. studied how effective this scaffolding was to support Vygotsky’s theory.

Method

A tutor instructed 30 children aged 3-5 to build a model.
The tutor then provided feedback according to how well the child was getting on.
The feedback was provided in two different ways:
- Showing (using a visual demonstration).
- Telling (verbal instruction).

Results

Scaffolding was shown to be effective as students would have been unable to complete the task by themselves.
But with the guidance of the tutor, they were able to complete the task.

Results cont.

The effectiveness of the scaffolding varied, depending on how the tutor broke down the steps of the task and how they approached identifying the crucial steps.
Showing feedback was used more often for younger children while telling feedback was more often used for older children.
Older children required less scaffolding than younger children.

Conclusion

Scaffolding is effective in teaching children a new task.
For maximum scaffolding effectiveness, tutors need to consider the method of feedback, how the steps are broken down, and how to identify important steps.

Evaluation - strengths

This study has high ecological validity, in other words, it took place in a realistic setting and has real-life applications.
Educational specialists and teachers use Vygotsky’s theory of scaffolding to design their teaching.

Evaluation - weaknesses

As the study had high ecological validity, it was difficult to control all extraneous variables.
So the reliability was reduced.

Evaluation of Vygotsky’s Theory of Cognitive Development

Vygotsky’s work is foundational in the study of child cognitive development. The theory has many studies that provide evidence. But there are some limitations.

Lack of research

In the section on Vygotsky’s theory, you can see that no reference was made to a specific study by Vygotsky.
In fact, he carried out very few.
This could potentially be a weakness of his theory.
But many scientists did carry out studies that provided evidence, such as Gardner and Gardner (1969), Chi et al. (1989) and Berk (1994).

Gardner and Gardner (1969)

Gardner and Gardner (1969) provided evidence on the importance of culture and language in learning.
They did this by teaching animals skills, thereby reaching higher levels of mental functioning.
- For example, they taught sign language to a chimp named Washoe.
- She then taught her adoptive son that sign language.

Chi et al. (1989)

Another study demonstrated the importance of inner speech and self-talk.
Published in 1989, the Chi et al. study demonstrated that ‘good’ students better monitored their learning and understanding through self-talk.
Whereas ‘bad' students did not self-talk enough and did not monitor their learning.

$__Berk (1994)__$

Berk (1994)

Finally, Berk (1994) demonstrated the importance of self-talk. Berk (1994) looked at children learning maths.
When children talked to themselves while solving a maths problem, they did better subsequently over the year.

Limitations

Vygotsky emphasised social learning. But he did not discuss the cognitive (internal) processes that underlie children’s development.
Vygotsky also did not mention the genetic or biological factors involved in intelligence and development.
His focus was on social and cultural factors.