Jean Piaget, whose work continues to be very influential in early childhood education, associated young children's animism with their 'primitive thought' claiming children remain animists until they reach a more advanced and rational stage of development. This article proposes a rethinking of the Piagetian view of animism, suggesting instead that…

Despite numerous critiques of the pioneering works of developmental child psychology, these key ideas continue to resonate within the field of ECEC (early childhood education and care). This article seeks to re-animate the critique through a closer look at two current tendencies within the Nordic countries: a growing and increasingly strict age…

In this theoretical paper, I use an empirically based example to illustrate particular design features of the Learning Through Activity (LTA) design framework and examine the impact of particular design principles. The LTA design framework is based on our elaboration of Piaget's construct of reflective abstraction. The example discussed here,…

"Dialectic Materialism as a Method of Doing Education" - was written over 30 years ago by one of us -- Huebner. Following an interesting dialogue we had over the last years, Dwayne suggested co-re-writing a revised piece to be published under both names. It explores at greater length the ideas that structured the initial piece and offers…

Elementary students' early development of embedding and disembedding is complex and paves the way for later STEM learning. The purpose of this study was to clarify the factors that support students' embedding (i.e., overlapping shapes to form a new shape) and disembedding (i.e., identifying discrete shapes within another shape) through the use of…

This study investigates first-year undergraduate students of Primary Education Mathematics Teacher Education's knowledge and understanding of rotational symmetry in geometric shapes. Three students participated in this study, which was designed within the framework of a one-to-one teaching experiment (a qualitative research method) in the fall…

This paper focuses on two elements of the Passover Seder ritual and their connection to Piagetian education theory. After outlining Piaget's theory of genetic epistemology and its implications for education theory, it focuses on Sigel's distancing theory, which touts question asking as a tool for presenting information to students. This paper…

Researchers have emphasized the importance of characterizing students' abilities to coordinate changes in covarying quantities. In this paper, we characterize three undergraduate students' coordination of covarying quantities' amounts of change during a teaching experiment. We adopt Piagetian notions of figurative and operative thought to describe…

This paper invokes cognitive developmental theory as a means for preparing citizens to deal with and resolve conflicts within or across nations. We take the centuries-old Greek-Turkish dispute as an example. We first outline a theory of intellectual development postulating that mental changes emerge in response to changing developmental priorities…

This study aims to help concrete thinkers learn science through the use of Piagets' cognitive processes (CPs) during scientific inquiry. A total of 203 fourth-grade students participated as volunteers in a pre-post control group study. The students were from urban, remote rural, and suburban regions of Indonesia. Data analysis demonstrated that…

Jeremy Sawyer recounts that, after Lev S. Vygotsky's death, Jean Piaget conceded the Russian psychologist correctly understood the social origins, functions, and developmental trajectory of children's egocentric speech (now called private speech) but dismissed this work as irrelevant to children's egocentrism or nondifferentiation of perspectives.…

As the most influential figure in the field of learning science, Piaget's research on children's concepts and consciousness, his concept of 'Piagetian education', his contribution to constructivism have been greatly adopted in education. However, the weaknesses of his work have been criticised by many scholars. This paper illustrates how Piaget's…

In this study, the authors investigate the ways in which young students demonstrate their critical mathematical thinking (CMT). Students aged 5-6 who are beginning their first formal year of education participated in the study. Data is presented from individual clinical interviews undertaken with 16 students. These interviews were analysed using…

Assessment is a topic of concern to all stakeholders in our educational system. Pattern Based Questions are an assessment tool which is an alternative to the standardized assessment tool, and they are based on generative learning pedagogy, which shows promise in engaging all learners and usefulness in teaching and learning but validity has not yet…

The book provides an entry point for graduate students and other scholars interested in using the constructs of Piaget's genetic epistemology in mathematics education research. Constructs comprising genetic epistemology form the basis for some of the most well-developed theoretical frameworks available for characterizing learning, particularly in…