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Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development & Phys Ed

This paper examines the features of the formal operational stage of Jean Piaget's theory of cognitive development that are relevant to teaching secondary school physical education. Piaget's theory, while focused primarily on examining how children learn to think, also considers how they manifest that thinking in a physical world and learn to use their bodies to relate to, learn from, and explore that world.

Piaget argues that children go through four stages in the development of their ability to think. The fourth, final stage is the formal operational stage, beginning around age 11 or 12 and continuing through adulthood. It is marked by the individual's facility at forming hypotheses and then testing them, in order to solve problems and answer questions. At this stage, the individual has also learned to think abstractly and to reason contrary to fact.

Individuals move from stage to stage progressively; they cannot progress to the next stage until they have successfully completed the one before it. Piaget argues that for factors govern progress: maturation, experience, social interaction, and equilibration. All four of these factors are relevant in teaching physical education, as they are related to the child's ability to draw correlations between the thought process and the physical world.

Maturation is both physical and psychological. A child learns to coordinate eye and hand movements in catching a ball, for instance, before being able to throw the ball back to an intended target. At the formal operational stage, the child can begin to understand complex rules to a ball game beyond the simple exchange of objects that he or she is now physically capable of mastering.

Experience means that the child has practiced working with real objects and learned from this exchange. In physical education, "practice makes perfect," and Piaget contends that the child who practices is able to develop both cognitive and physica...

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Piaget's Theory of Cognitive Development & Phys Ed. (1969, December 31). In LotsofEssays.com. Retrieved 11:21, March 29, 2024, from https://www.lotsofessays.com/viewpaper/1711802.html