What you'll learn
How does the brain develop, and how do children learn to think? The Development topic in AQA GCSE Psychology looks at early brain development, Piaget's theory of cognitive development, and how understanding development affects education. For AQA GCSE Psychology you need to understand early brain development, Piaget's stages and key studies, other views on learning, and the application to education. This guide covers brain development, Piaget's theory, evaluation and alternative views, and educational applications. By the end you should be able to describe and evaluate theories of development.
Key terms and definitions
Development — The changes in thinking and behaviour that happen as a person grows.
Nature — The influence of inherited, biological factors.
Nurture — The influence of the environment and experience.
Cognitive development — The development of thinking, reasoning and understanding.
Schema — A mental framework of ideas about the world.
Assimilation — Fitting new information into an existing schema.
Accommodation — Changing a schema to fit new information.
Conservation — Understanding that quantity stays the same despite changes in appearance.
Core concepts
Early brain development
The brain develops both before and after birth. Its development is influenced by both nature (genes and biological maturation) and nurture (the environment and experiences). Nerve cells (neurons) form connections, and these connections are strengthened or lost depending on experience. This shows that development is not fixed by biology alone — the environment shapes how the brain develops, which is part of the wider nature–nurture debate.
Piaget's theory of cognitive development
Jean Piaget proposed that children's thinking develops through stages, and that children are active learners who build their own understanding. Key ideas include:
- Schemas — mental frameworks of knowledge about the world.
- Assimilation — adding new information to an existing schema.
- Accommodation — changing a schema when new information does not fit.
Piaget argued that children pass through four stages in a fixed order:
- Sensorimotor (0–2 years) — learning through senses and movement; developing object permanence.
- Pre-operational (2–7 years) — using language and symbols, but thinking is egocentric and lacks conservation.
- Concrete operational (7–11 years) — logical thinking about concrete objects; conservation develops.
- Formal operational (11+ years) — abstract and hypothetical reasoning develops.
Key concepts: conservation and egocentrism
Two ideas Piaget studied are especially important:
- Conservation — the understanding that the amount of something stays the same even if its appearance changes (for example, the same amount of liquid in a tall thin glass and a short wide one). Piaget found young children in the pre-operational stage often lacked conservation.
- Egocentrism — young children's difficulty in seeing things from another person's point of view. Piaget's "three mountains" study suggested pre-operational children were egocentric.
Evaluating Piaget's theory
Piaget's theory has been very influential but is also criticised:
- Strengths — it was based on careful observation, had a huge influence on education, and highlighted that children think differently from adults.
- Criticisms — some studies suggest Piaget underestimated children's abilities (for example, later research showed children could show less egocentrism than he claimed when tasks were more familiar). Development may also be more continuous than fixed stages suggest.
Other views on learning
Other psychologists offered different views. Some emphasised the role of others in learning — that children learn through interaction with more knowledgeable people, and that language and social interaction are central to development. This contrasts with Piaget's focus on the individual child discovering things for themselves. Comparing these views is a common exam requirement.
Applying development to education
Understanding cognitive development affects how children are taught. If children learn by actively building understanding, then education should provide hands-on, active learning suited to the child's stage of development. Piaget's ideas encouraged child-centred, active learning and matching tasks to a child's developmental stage. Approaches that stress learning from others support teaching methods that use guidance, discussion and working with more knowledgeable people. So theories of development have shaped real teaching practices.
The role of learning styles and the brain
Development includes the growth of the brain and how this affects learning. As children grow, different parts of the brain mature at different rates, which affects what they are able to learn and when. Some psychologists have suggested people have preferred learning styles (such as visual or verbal learning), though research into whether teaching to a learning style actually improves learning is mixed and often does not support the idea. Understanding brain development matters for education because it suggests that tasks should be appropriate to the stage a child has reached — trying to teach abstract ideas before the brain and thinking have developed enough is likely to be ineffective. This connects the biology of brain development to Piaget's idea of stages.
Willingham's ideas on learning and cognition
An important contrasting view to Piaget comes from the study of how learning actually works in the brain. Some psychologists argue that cognitive development depends heavily on building knowledge and memory, rather than passing through fixed stages, and that thinking skills are closely tied to what a learner already knows. This view stresses the importance of practising skills until they become automatic, and of building strong foundations of knowledge that new learning can connect to. It also questions the popular idea of fixed learning styles. Comparing this knowledge-based view with Piaget's stage theory — one emphasising building knowledge, the other emphasising developmental stages — is a useful way to evaluate different explanations of how children learn.
Worked examples
Example 1: Assimilation and accommodation
A child who knows the schema "dog" sees a cat and calls it a dog. Later they learn it is different and form a new schema. Identify the processes. Calling the cat a "dog" is assimilation (fitting it into the existing dog schema). Forming a new schema for "cat" when it does not fit is accommodation (changing/creating a schema).
Example 2: Conservation
A child sees water poured from a short wide glass into a tall thin glass and says there is now more water. What does this show? It shows the child lacks conservation — they do not understand that the amount of water stays the same despite the change in appearance. This is typical of Piaget's pre-operational stage.
Example 3: A criticism of Piaget
Give one criticism of Piaget's theory. Some later research suggests Piaget underestimated children's abilities — for example, children showed they were less egocentric than he claimed when the task was made more familiar or clearer. This suggests his stages may not fully reflect what children can do.
Example 4: Applying to education
How might Piaget's theory influence how a subject is taught to young children? It suggests using active, hands-on learning matched to the child's stage of development, letting children explore and build their own understanding rather than just being told facts, because Piaget saw children as active learners.
Common mistakes and how to avoid them
A common error is confusing assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation fits new information into an existing schema; accommodation changes a schema (or makes a new one) when the information does not fit. Learn the difference.
Students often get Piaget's stages out of order or muddle their features. Learn them in order — sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational — and one key feature of each (object permanence, egocentrism/lack of conservation, conservation, abstract reasoning).
Another mistake is only giving Piaget's theory without evaluation. Exam questions often want strengths and criticisms, such as underestimating children's abilities.
When explaining conservation, be precise: it is understanding that the quantity stays the same despite a change in appearance. A vague answer loses marks.
Finally, when comparing views, note that Piaget emphasised the individual child discovering things, while other views stress learning from others through interaction — do not blur the two.
Exam technique for "Development"
Be ready to describe Piaget's key concepts (schemas, assimilation, accommodation) and his four stages in order, with a feature of each, and to explain conservation and egocentrism.
For evaluation, give strengths and criticisms of Piaget's theory, especially that it may underestimate children's abilities, and compare it with views that emphasise learning from others.
Apply the theories to education, explaining how understanding development shapes teaching. Use precise terms — schema, assimilation, accommodation, conservation, egocentrism — throughout, and support points with the relevant studies.
Quick revision summary
- Brain development is shaped by both nature (genes) and nurture (environment) — part of the nature–nurture debate.
- Piaget: children are active learners who build schemas through assimilation (fitting in) and accommodation (changing the schema).
- Four stages: sensorimotor (0–2, object permanence), pre-operational (2–7, egocentric, no conservation), concrete operational (7–11, conservation), formal operational (11+, abstract reasoning).
- Conservation = quantity stays the same despite appearance; egocentrism = difficulty seeing others' viewpoints.
- Piaget was influential but may have underestimated children; other views stress learning from others.
- Theories of development shaped child-centred, active education matched to a child's stage.