Evaluation of Vygotsky’s theory of cognitive development

Nunes studied Brazilian street urchins and found that they had development complex mathematical skills without any formal teaching. They had learnt it all from interacting with the adults around them.

Greenfield and Lave looked at Mexican girls learning to weave.

The women teaching them would start of with easy tasks then more onto harder ones once they had accomplished that.

Moss showed that mothers naturally used scaffolding methods when they were teaching their infant to construct a tower out of blocks.

Berk found that 60% of 6 year olds spend time talking to themselves whilst solving a maths problem and that those who talked to themselves most performed the best.

He has shown how teachers and parents need to actively enage in the child's learning so it can meet it full potential (zone of proximal development). Also the importance of group work with in class (role of dialogue).

This means that it who be assumed that a child can learn a complex concept (such as abstract thinking) at any age with the right support.

This is not the case showing that their must be a biological constraints to a child's learning.

Light et al. found that on a computer based task children learned better in pairs than on their own even though the other child was merely present and didn't say anything. This showed that it wasn't the support that the child was been given by the the pair.