Monday, March 9, 2009
Piaget's Stage Theory
Jean Piaget’s work in developmental psychology is widely known in the United States and has had a strong influence on education. His stage theory provides a framework for educators, including music educators, to help children of all ages to accommodate and assimilate new concepts and information.
The first of Piaget’s four stages of intellectual development is the sensorimotor stage. Children in this stage are pre-lingual and interact with their environment primarily through their senses. They begin to achieve object permanence (just because they can’t see it doesn’t mean it no longer exists), and they recognize themselves as agents of action (e.g., shaking a rattle will make a sound) (Abeles, Hoffer, & Klotman, 1995).
Around age two, children enter the preoperational stage and stay in this stage until about age seven. Children acquire the ability to store images and represent objects as symbols, most notably evidenced by the acquisition of language but also by the child’s newfound ability to fantasize. Children in this stage can also classify objects by single features common attributes (Abeles et al., 1995).
An important different between preoperational children and concrete operational children is the ability to conserve. Children ages seven to ten in this third stage can also classify objects according to the common features between the objects. These children begin to think more logically and can perform increasingly complex mental actions, such as organizing characteristics along a continuum (small/smaller/smallest) rather than into dichotomies (small/big) (Abeles et al., 1995).
Finally, children enter the formal operational stage around age eleven. These adolescents can deal with abstract thoughts and are better able to evaluate and problem-solve through testing hypotheses systematically. They can also look beyond the present to the future more so than concrete operational children. Adolescents in formal operations “have developed most of the basic thought processes of adults” (Abeles et al., 1995, p. 199).
All educators, including music educators, might want to take a student’s placement in Piaget’s four developmental stages into consideration when planning instruction. A single concept could be modified to be developmentally appropriate for any student. For instance, students of any age could study the concept of tone color or timbre, but each stage would require a vastly different approach. Children in the sensorimotor stage would need a lot of exposure to different musical instruments, listening to the sounds made by themselves or others. The more exposure students have to different sounds up until age two, the better they would be able to recognize these timbres during the preoperational stage. Children ages two to seven could begin to associate images to sound, such as connecting the sound of a drum to a picture of a drum, or imagining a picture of a drum when hearing a drum sound. In the concrete operational stage, children could begin to classify musical sounds into categories such as: metals, woods, drums and shakers/scrapers; aeorophones, chordophones, membranophones and idiophones; or woodwind, brass, string and percussion. They could even understand more complex categorization, such as woodwind instruments with a single reed, double reed or no reed. Finally, adolescents in formal operations could begin to understand why instruments have different timbres, studying the abstract acoustical concepts of overtones or attack and decay.
Although Piaget’s stage theory has come under some criticism, the basic idea of adjusting learning concepts to a child’s developmental readiness is a basic tenant of education. Educators can use Piaget’s and others’ theories to assist in planning or modifying curricular sequencing and style of instruction.
Abeles, H. F., Hoffer, C. R., & Klotman, R. H. (1995). Foundations of music education (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomas Higher Education.
The first of Piaget’s four stages of intellectual development is the sensorimotor stage. Children in this stage are pre-lingual and interact with their environment primarily through their senses. They begin to achieve object permanence (just because they can’t see it doesn’t mean it no longer exists), and they recognize themselves as agents of action (e.g., shaking a rattle will make a sound) (Abeles, Hoffer, & Klotman, 1995).
Around age two, children enter the preoperational stage and stay in this stage until about age seven. Children acquire the ability to store images and represent objects as symbols, most notably evidenced by the acquisition of language but also by the child’s newfound ability to fantasize. Children in this stage can also classify objects by single features common attributes (Abeles et al., 1995).
An important different between preoperational children and concrete operational children is the ability to conserve. Children ages seven to ten in this third stage can also classify objects according to the common features between the objects. These children begin to think more logically and can perform increasingly complex mental actions, such as organizing characteristics along a continuum (small/smaller/smallest) rather than into dichotomies (small/big) (Abeles et al., 1995).
Finally, children enter the formal operational stage around age eleven. These adolescents can deal with abstract thoughts and are better able to evaluate and problem-solve through testing hypotheses systematically. They can also look beyond the present to the future more so than concrete operational children. Adolescents in formal operations “have developed most of the basic thought processes of adults” (Abeles et al., 1995, p. 199).
All educators, including music educators, might want to take a student’s placement in Piaget’s four developmental stages into consideration when planning instruction. A single concept could be modified to be developmentally appropriate for any student. For instance, students of any age could study the concept of tone color or timbre, but each stage would require a vastly different approach. Children in the sensorimotor stage would need a lot of exposure to different musical instruments, listening to the sounds made by themselves or others. The more exposure students have to different sounds up until age two, the better they would be able to recognize these timbres during the preoperational stage. Children ages two to seven could begin to associate images to sound, such as connecting the sound of a drum to a picture of a drum, or imagining a picture of a drum when hearing a drum sound. In the concrete operational stage, children could begin to classify musical sounds into categories such as: metals, woods, drums and shakers/scrapers; aeorophones, chordophones, membranophones and idiophones; or woodwind, brass, string and percussion. They could even understand more complex categorization, such as woodwind instruments with a single reed, double reed or no reed. Finally, adolescents in formal operations could begin to understand why instruments have different timbres, studying the abstract acoustical concepts of overtones or attack and decay.
Although Piaget’s stage theory has come under some criticism, the basic idea of adjusting learning concepts to a child’s developmental readiness is a basic tenant of education. Educators can use Piaget’s and others’ theories to assist in planning or modifying curricular sequencing and style of instruction.
Abeles, H. F., Hoffer, C. R., & Klotman, R. H. (1995). Foundations of music education (2nd ed.). Belmont, CA: Thomas Higher Education.
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