Vygotsky and Piaget have different ideas on cognitive development. It is interesting to note that Vygotsky’s theory was described as “thinks afresh according to how he saw things at the time”; whereas Piaget’s theory was always consistent.
Vygotsky emphasised much on ‘nonspontaneous’ concepts. He was concerned about dynamics of development, which has an influence on the cognitive learning of children in applicable issues as primacy of social processes of learning. This was also pointed out by Wong, who stated that human thought processes were mainly influenced by their interactions with the social, historical and cultural environments. In comparison, Piaget’s theory was built on with the statics of development and emphasised more on ‘spontaneous’ concept, which means that the influence of the environment is not much taken into consideration. In addition, Vygotskian’s theory focused on individuals whereas Piaget’s focused on the population as a whole.
The zone of proximal development (ZPD) concept as Vygotsky suggested is practically useful. In his clinical interview with 10-year-old children, the prediction of their unassisted score on the Binet test of intelligence is not as good as ZPD score with regard to their school achievement after two years. Therefore, it was believed that ZPD is a better predictor tool of potential achievement than the child’s IQ score.
In short, Vygotsky’s theory may not be as popular as Piaget’s theory; the work of each seemed to be complementary to each other’s work. In order to get a complete picture in the work of improve schooling, Vygotsky would have needed Piaget’s descriptions of development. On the other hand, if Piaget needed to modify his intuitions about collaborative learning among peers, he would have needed the theory of Vygotsky.
Reference:
Shayer, M. (2003). Not just Piaget; not just Vygotsky, and certainly not Vygotsky as alternative to Piaget. Learning and Instruction, 13, 465-485.
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