Question

Valsala is a teacher educator who made the following statements in the classroom while teaching the theory of Piaget:

(1) Piaget is a genetic epistemologist (i.e. one who focuses on the origins of thinking)

(2) According to Piaget, children are born with a very basic mental structure

(3) Equilibrium occurs when a child's schemas can deal with most new information through assimilation

1. Only (1) is correct
2. Both (1) and (3) are correct
3. Only (3) is correct
4. All are correct

Answer 1

Correct Answer - Option 4 : All are correct

Piaget felt that living organisms are self-regulating in their choices of ways to adapt. Piaget saw a link between biological intelligence and human being intelligence. The Piagetian theory explains how human intelligence develops through an intellectual regulatory process geared by adaptation to the environment.

Piaget stated that he was not a psychologist, but a genetic epistemologist. A genetic epistemologist is someone who studies the development of knowledge in the individual and the group and applies developmental and historical perspectives to bodies of knowledge.

According to Piaget,

• Children are born with very basic mental structures.
• Roots of knowledge, from elementary form, all the way through to scientific knowledge, progresses through stages.
• The four stages are,
  • Sensorimotor Stage (birth to 2 years),
  • Pre-Operational Stage (2 to 5 years),
  • Concrete Operational Stage (5 to 11 years), and
  • Formal Operational Stage (11 to adult).

Piaget described two processes used by the individual in their attempt to adapt: assimilation, accommodation, and equilibrium. Both of these processes are used throughout life as the person increasingly adapts to the environment in a more complex manner.

• Assimilation is the process of using or transforming the environment so that it can be placed in preexisting cognitive structures.
• Accommodation is the process of changing cognitive structures in order to accept something from the environment. 
• Equilibrium, a state of balance between individuals' mental schemata, or frameworks, and their environment. Piaget conceived equilibration as an ongoing process that refines and transforms mental structures, constituting the basis of cognitive development.

Hence, all the options provided are correct.