Vygotsky: Children as Active Contributors to Their Own Development
Lev Vygotsky (1896-1934) was a Russian psychologist whose theories did not become famed until the collapse of the Soviet Union, allowing the West to translate his work. He explored cognitive development and the role of social interaction in how we make meaning. He explained that social learning is a mandatory part of development as it allows us to function within our culturally specific environments. His sociocultural approach is unique as it acknowledges that development is not attributable to a single element and cannot be understood without considering one’s social and cultural context.
Vygotsky said that children have innate rudimentary skills for intellectual development called ‘elementary mental functions’. By interacting with our sociocultural environment these functions evolve and become sophisticated operations called ‘higher mental functions’. He explained that this could be achieved through educational means; through helping children develop cognitively not just in subject-specific academic performance. He continued that education should incorporate culturally specific tools of intellectual adaption, such as teaching techniques of thinking, learning, and recalling, encouraging elementary mental functions to be used more complexly.
Adults are an important source of cognitive development as they ‘transmit’ their cultures’ tools of intellectual adaption onto children which they internalise. This ability to use tools is central to human intelligence and is what fundamentally separates us from animals. He explained that we use culturally adopted psychological tools as symbolic systems such as mnemonics, numbers, maps, and language to expand our mental abilities, communicate and analyse reality. Vygotsky said that education should introduce children to many different types of cultural tools so they can navigate their world through "the glasses of human culture." (Zaporozhets).
Vygotsky explained that children are inherently investigative and therefore in control of their own learning and development of new schema. However, this depends appreciably upon the amount of social interaction they engage in with a more knowledgeable person. Such person will provide a child with varied informational instruction, co-operatively and collaboratively. Subsequently the child will actively try to understand the information given and internalise it as knowledge, encouraging cognitive development. Therefore Vygotsky believed that teachers are pivotal for development by guiding children on problems beyond their current ability, enabling them to eventually perform beyond their original intelligence.
He also said that children through social interaction co-construct their knowledge from a ‘more knowledgeable other’ (MKO). The MKO in an educational setting is the teacher, however it is important to note that an MKO does not necessarily have to be an adult, as it has been shown that children can learn from peers, teenagers, and electronic teaching materials.
This MKO operates with the child within their “Zone of Proximal Development” (ZPD). The ZPD is Vygotsky’s figurative zone between what a child can achieve independently, and what they can achieve with an MKO (i.e. guidance); “what the child is able to do in collaboration today he will be able to do independently tomorrow” (Vygotsky, 1987, p. 211; Vygotsky, 1998b, p. 202).
Vygotsky said that within this zone, guidance and attention should be given so that children can develop their skills. This is so they can perform successfully and independently in future similar tasks, enhancing their higher mental functioning and cognitive development.
The ZPD educationally measures mental development prospectively, and is the gate for children to access their higher mental functions (maturing). ‘ZPD’ is used broadly across multiple fields such as moral education (Tappan, 1998), those who are gifted or who have learning difficulties (Kilgore, 1999), as well as teacher training (Jones, Rua, & Carter, 1998).
Vygotsky advocated that MKO’s should use co-operative learning exercises where less adept children can develop their skills through interactive learning with more advanced peers, within their ZPD.
Vygotskian theorem gained validity by its success in educational application in improving children’s ability to learn from text, enabling teacher-pupil collaboration in summarising, questioning, clarifying, and predicting. As pupils get older, teachers withdraw their collaborative-instructional method to encourage the children to become independent and self-efficient in their learning; shrinking the ZPD whilst their logic and cognitive development strengthens.
His theories have influenced contemporary collaborative learning styles, such as group learning and apprenticeship etc. For example, scaffolding is a complementary concept in social learning originally introduced by Bruner (1957). The term was later explored by Wells (2000), in efforts to operationalise ZPD. Scaffolding here, explains the social and participatory nature of teaching and learning within the ZPD. Many professionals and researchers have used scaffolding as a metaphor to illustrate the role of MKO’s in guiding children's learning and development (Daniels, 2001). Educationally, scaffolding is an advisory structure whereby the teacher models the desired learning strategy or task, then gradually shifts responsibility to the students. As children become more adept at their task, the teacher will recognise that the child has internalised the problem-solving processes provided by the previous scaffolded episode and will ‘dismantle’ the scaffoldings, indicating that the educational application was beneficial (Rogoff, 1990; Donato, 1994).
Whilst Vygotsky established that cognitive development is promptly dependant on social interaction and is culturally specific, Piaget (1936) undermined this predicting that all children will progress through set developmental stages, regardless of their culture. Both theorists boast support from research evidence as some elements of development appear universal whilst others displays clear cultural differences.
However it can be criticised that Vygotsky ignored the child’s own desire to learn – surely this is an important element of being active in one’s own development? Schaffer (2004) argued that emotions from failure and success are important motivational factors that will influence children and therefore ultimately their development.
Faulkner and Woodhead (1999) also undermined Vygotsky, demonstrating that children don’t necessarily gain skills from peers and that effective learning isn’t always dependent on teaching strategies. That instead during group activities, social dynamics significantly affect learning as pupils undertake different roles as either leaders, mediators, or being passive. Therefore teachers cannot guarantee that integrative group-learning is an effective way for all students to learn and develop sufficiently. It instead directly depends on how much of an active participant the student is willing to be.
Mercer and Fisher (1998) argued that the ZPD is too restricted to adult-child interaction and consequently invalidates its own functionality within classroom applications. They found that teachers commonly have to design learning activities in accordance to the class-size and not to individual needs. Therefore, the MKO’s effectivity on students is slight as their individual ZPD’s are ignored and treated equal to peers; restricting their individual development and learning ability. They also argue that ZPD is a marginal alternative to Piagetian terminology or the IQ elemental age stages equating to an intelligence score.
Furthermore, it can be argued that the ZPD and its effectivity, is unrealistic and fundamentally reductionist. This is because the model suggests it provides educational perfection, and a developmental ideal as a tool; that a teacher will assuredly improve the intelligence and development of any child, no matter the subject by incorporating the ZPD. This is illogical as it suggests an enormous generality assumption.
In Vygotsky’s defence, the intention of the ZPD’s utilisation could have been distorted through translation. His concept was named ‘zone of proximinal development’ (intentional?) and not ‘zone of proximinal learning’, therefore suggesting that it was designed not to manage development in a subject or task, but merely development itself. Therefore, ZPD criticisms could be invalid due to misunderstanding the concept. Vygotsky’s untimely death could be why further clarity wasn’t provided on this.
Freund (1990) supported the application of ZPD in real-world settings regarding decision making, independence of choice, and problem-solving. Freund administered a task where children had to decide furniture placement in a dollhouse. The results showed that children who previously had a guide on this, had higher accuracy when repeating the task alone compared to those who didn’t. This supports that guided learning within the ZPD means increased performance (i.e. scaffolding) when working alone in the future.
In conclusion, ZPD in the context of educational practices clearly conceptualises the relationship between learning and development. Despite there previously being only a few available resources of Vygotskian literature, interpretations of the ZPD remains sufficient today for wider researchers to reflect and elaborate upon his ideas. From this, many interpretations and re-workings of his concepts have been designed. These new developments alongside critical evaluation is a necessary part of the scientific process needed to refine the concept of ZPD for understanding and developing educational practices.
Due to Vygotsky’s work becoming more accessible, we are able to better interpret his concepts and how children are active participants in their own development through guided means and group activities. It is clearer now that ZPD should be used as an active tool for child cognitive development to be applied in an educational setting, rather than it being used in the context for development in a particular subject or skill itself. If development for specific subjects are to be measured, assisted instruction or scaffolding should be used instead, as the design intended.
References
Bruner, J. S., 1957. Going beyond the information given. New York: Norton.
Crawford, K., 1996. Vygotskian approaches in human development in the information era. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 31 (1-2), pp. 43-62.
Daniels, H., 2001. Vygotsky and Pedagogy. NY: Routledge/Falmer.
Dolya, G., Palmer, S., 2005. Lev Vygotsky The Life of Vygotsky. Manchester, Sue Palmer. Available from: http://www.suepalmer.co.uk/education_articles_lev_vygotsky.php [Accessed 10 May 2017].
Faulkner, D., Woodhead, M., 1999. Child Development in Families,Schools and Society - Study Guide, The Open University, Milton Keynes.
Faulkner, D, Woodhead, M (1999a) Child Development in Families, Schools and Society - Offprints, The Open University Press, Milton Keynes.
Freund, L. S. (1990). Maternal regulation of children's problem-solving behavior and its impact on children's performance. Child Development, 61, 113-126.
Jones, G. M., Rua, M. J., Carter, G., 1998. Science teachers' conceptual growth within Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. Journal of Research in Science Teaching, 35, pp. 967-985.
Kilgore, D. W., 1999. Understanding learning in social movements: A theory of collective learning. International Journal of Lifelong Education, 18, pp. 191-202.
McLeod, S. A., 2008. Bruner. Simply Psychology. Available from: https://www.simplypsychology.org/bruner.html [Accessed 12 May].
McLeod, S. A., 2009. Piaget Cognitive Theory. Simply Psychology. Available from: https://www.simplypsychology.org/piaget.html [Accessed 12 May].
Mercer, N, Fisher, E (1998) ‘How do teachers help children to learn? An analysis of teachers' interventions in computer-based activities', in Faulkner, D, Littleton, K, Woodhead, M, Learning Relationships in the Classroom, Routledge, London, pp. 111-130.
Neill, D., 2014. Visualizing The Zone Of Proximal Development - The Verbal To Visual Podcast - Doug Neill [PNG Image]. VerbalToVisual.com. Available from: https://goo.gl/images/zvOcOH [Accessed 18 April 2017].
Piaget, J., 1972. The Psychology of Intelligence. Totowa, NJ: Littlefield.
Rogoff, B (1990) Apprenticeship in Thinking: cognitive development in social context, Oxford University Press, Oxford.
Tappan, M. B., 1998. Moral education in the zone of proximal development. Journal of Moral Education, 27, pp. 141-160.
Tharp, R, Gallimore, R., 1998. ‘A theory of teaching as assisted performance', in Faulkner, D, Littleton, K, Woodhead, M,. Learning Relationships in the Classroom, Routledge, London, pp. 93-110.
Vaäzkz, D., 2012. Vygotsky and language development. Available from: https://www.slideshare.net/danilavsky/vygotsky-and-language-development [Accessed 22 April 2017].
Vygotsky, L. S., 1962. Thought and language. Cambridge MA: MIT Press.
Vygotsky, L. S., 1978. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Vygotsky, L., 1978. Interaction between learning and development. Readings on the development of children, 23 (3), pp. 34-41.
Vygotsky, L. S., 1980. Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Harvard: university press.
Vygotsky, L. S., 1987. Thinking and speech. In R.W. Rieber & A.S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, Volume 1: Problems of general psychology (pp. 39–285). New York: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1934).
Vygotsky, L. S., 1987. Thinking and speech (N. Minick, Trans.). In R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 1. Problems of general psychology (pp. 39-285). New York: Plenum Press. (Original work published 1934).
Vygotsky, L. S., 1998b. The problem of age (M. Hall, Trans.). In R. W. Rieber (Ed.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky: Vol. 5. Child psychology (pp. 187-205). New York: Plenum Press. (Original work written 1933-1934).
Wood, D. J., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G., 1976. The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychiatry and Psychology, 17(2), pp. 89-100.
Wells, G., 2000. Dialogic Inquiry: Towards a Socio-cultural Practice and Theory of Education. New York: Cambridge University Press.