Scientific Concepts
Thinking and Speech
Chapter 6
The development of scientific concepts in childhood
L.S. Vygotsky
Yi-Shiuan Chiu
• Zhozefina Il’inichna Shif (1904-1978)
Soviet psychologist and student of Vyngotsky. Defectology
– Shif ( 1933). The development of everyday and scientific concepts. Dissertation, Moscow.
• Shif’s (1933) work
• Development of concept
– scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea
• Vygotsky’s idea: foreign language learning
– The relation between scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea: consciousness
• Vygotsky’s idea: the development of consciousness
• The relationship between instruction and development
– Three perspectives: nature, nurture, interactive
– Vygotsky’s idea: complex interrelationships
• Speech and written speech
• Zone of proximal development
• The relation of generality
• Limits of the research
• Shif’s (1933) work
• Development of concept
– scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea
• Vygotsky’s idea: foreign language learning
– The relation between scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea: consciousness
• Vygotsky’s idea: the development of consciousness
• The relationship between instruction and development
– Three perspectives: nature, nurture, interactive
– Vygotsky’s idea: complex interrelationships
• Speech and written speech
• Zone of proximal development
• The relation of generality
• Limits of the research
The goal of Shif’s (1933) work
• An experimental evaluation of scientific and everyday concepts
• The relationship between instruction and development
The assumption of Shif’s (1933) work
• Concept or word meanings develop
• Scientific concepts are not learned in final form
• Study of everyday concepts cannot be generalized to scientific concepts
• The problem as a whole must be studied experimentally
• Concept is not an automatic mental habit, but a complex and true act of thinking that cannot be measured through simple memorization
The design of Shif’s (1933) research
• The structurally identical experimental tasks
• Using a series of pictures, the experimenter told a story.
• The last sentence is broken off at the word “because” or “although”.
• Independent variable1
– Scientific concept (nonspontaneous)
– Everyday concept (spontaneous)
• Independent variable2
– Because: causal relation
• “Kolya went to the movie theater because…” (everyday)
• “The train left the tracks because…” (everyday)
– Although: adversative relation
• “Olya still reads poorly, although…” (everyday)
• Dependent variable
– % completed sentences
The results of Shif’s (1933) research
• Shif’s (1933) work
• Development of concept
– scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea
• Vygotsky’s idea: foreign language learning
– The relation between scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea: consciousness
• Vygotsky’s idea: the development of consciousness
• The relationship between instruction and development
– Three perspectives: nature, nurture, interactive
– Vygotsky’s idea: complex interrelationships
• Speech and written speech
• Zone of proximal development
• The relation of generality
• Limits of the research
The development of concepts
Vygotsky’s assumption
Four research groups_1
Foreign language learning
Four research groups_2
• Shif’s (1933) work
• Development of concept
– scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea
• Vygotsky’s idea: foreign language learning
– The relation between scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea: consciousness
• Vygotsky’s idea: the development of consciousness
• The relationship between instruction and development
– Three perspectives: nature, nurture, interactive
– Vygotsky’s idea: complex interrelationships
• Speech and written speech
• Zone of proximal development
• The relation of generality
• Limits of the research
The relationship between everyday concepts and scientific concepts
Vygotsky’s criticism
new psychology on consciousness
The development of consciousness
• To become consciously aware of something and master it you must first have it at your disposal
• Infant
– A lack of differentiation in the separate functions
• Early childhood
– Development of differentiation of perception
• Preschool age
– Memory is dominant
• School age
– àperception and memory are comparatively developedà a basic prerequisite for mental development
– Attention
èConsciousness is not only capable of becoming consciously aware of its function but of creating them form nothing before they develop
The activity and the object of consciousness
• “I tie a knot”
– What information (activity)
– How information (object)
• The transition to verbal introspection represents the initial generation or abstraction of internal mental forms of activity
• The foundation of consciousness awareness is the generalization or abstraction of the mental processes, which leads to their mastery. Instruction has a decisive role in this process.
• Conscious awareness enters through the gate opened up by the scientific concept
From development of consciousness to the development of concepts
• Shif’s (1933) work
• Development of concept
– scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea
• Vygotsky’s idea: foreign language learning
– The relation between scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea: consciousness
• Vygotsky’s idea: the development of consciousness
• The relationship between instruction and development
– Three perspectives: nature, nurture, interactive
– Vygotsky’s idea: complex interrelationships
• Speech and written speech
• Zone of proximal development
• The relation of generality
• Limits of the research
The relation between instruction and development: three perspectives
• Nature (Piaget)
– Instruction and development are two distinct and essentially independent processes.
– A normal and high level of development o\can be attainted without instruction
• Nurture (William James, Thorndike)
– The two processes are identified
– Associationism. Instruction is a meaningless mechanical processes
– The development of the child’s intellect as a sequential and gradual accumulation of conditioned reflexes
• Interaction (Koffka)
– Development always has a dual character
– A new understanding of instruction
– School instruction is associate with the higher mental functions
The relation between instruction and development: Vygotsky’s idea
• The maturity of the mental functions that provide the foundation for instruction in basic school subjects.
– First group
• Speech (spontaneous) and written speech (nonspontaneous),
• grammar
– Second group: the temporal relationship between the processes of instruction and development
– Third group: school instruction
– Forth group: zone of proximal development
First group_Written speech…
• is more than the translation of oral speech into written sign
• is an entirely unique speech function
• cannot repeat the development stages of oral speech
• is more abstract than oral speech
• is speech-monologue
• requires a dual abstraction (auditory, interlocutor)
• More independent, more voluntary
• Child must become consciously aware of the word’s structure, and partition it and voluntarily recreate it in written signs
• Development
– Oral speechà inner speech à written speech
• Relationship
First group_ grammar
• Native language: acquired the entire grammar
àWhat does he learn from instruction in grammar?
– The child is able to pronounce a given sound, but he is not able to pronounce it volitionally
– E.g., “Moscow” “sk”
– èconscious awareness/ mastery of what he does
– The development of the psychological bases of school instruction do not predate instrution; they develop in an unbroken internal connection with it.
Second group_ temporal relationship
• The processes of instruction and development never run in parallel
• E.g., arithmetic
– Aha experience
– Some general concept of the decimal system does develop
Third group_ school instruction
• The child’s abstract thinking develops in all his lessons
• There is commonality in the mental foundations underlying instruction in the various school subjects. Conscious awareness and mastery
• Instruction influences the development of the higher mental functions. The child maters a structure that is transferred to other domains
• The mental functions are interdependent and interconnected
Forth group_ zone of proximal development
• zone of proximal development ~ sensitive period
≠ biological process
= biological + social process
– The difference between the child’s actual level of development (matured) and the level of performance that he achieves in collaboration with the adult (the processing of maturing)
– For the dynamic of intellectual development and for the success of instruction than does the actual level of development
– What collaboration or imitation contributes to the child’s performance is restricted to limits which are determined by the state of his development and his intellectual potential
– Development based on collaboration and imitation is the source of all the specifically human characteristics of consciousness that develop in the child
• à is a defining feature of the relationship between instruction and development
Experimental findings
• Against: because of the school knowledge
– The child has greater experience and knowledge of the objects and events represented by everyday concepts
• The experiment can be seen as a final stage in a long process
– The solution of social science problems is a covert form of collaboration
• “although”. Spontaneous concepts in this domain have not yet matured enough for scientific concepts to rise above them
• Everyday concepts rises rapidly and eventually approaches the level representing problems based on scientific concepts
– àthe mastery of scientific concepts influences this development in the child’s spontaneous concept is obvious
• The regularities of the two relationships are general laws
From development of consciousness to the development of concepts
• Shif’s (1933) work
• Development of concept
– scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea
• Vygotsky’s idea: foreign language learning
– The relation between scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea: consciousness
• Vygotsky’s idea: the development of consciousness
• The relationship between instruction and development
– Three perspectives: nature, nurture, interactive
– Vygotsky’s idea: complex interrelationships
• Speech and written speech
• Zone of proximal development
• The relation of generality
• Limits of the research
Relation of generality
• Each concept is a generalization
• The relationship between concepts are relationships of generality.
• Longitude of a concept: abstract – concrete, act of thought itself
• Latitude of concept: concepts that correspond to other points in reality, the relationship to object
• The measure of generality determines the set of possible operations of thought available for a given concept
• A new stage in the development of generalization is achieved only through the reformation of the previous stage
– The lower operation is already viewed as a special case of the higher
• èconcepts are connected not by associative threads or in accordance with the structural principles of perceived or represented images but in accordance with their essential nature, in accordance with relationships of generality
Concept and word
• The first is the growth and development of the child’s concepts, the development of word meaning in particular. The meaning of the word is generalization
• There will be different relationships of generality among concepts
• Different relationships of generality determine the different types of operations that are possible for a given form of thinking
• Shif’s (1933) work
• Development of concept
– scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea
• Vygotsky’s idea: foreign language learning
– The relation between scientific and everyday concepts
• Piaget’s idea: consciousness
• Vygotsky’s idea: the development of consciousness
• The relationship between instruction and development
– Three perspectives: nature, nurture, interactive
– Vygotsky’s idea: complex interrelationships
• Speech and written speech
• Zone of proximal development
• The relation of generality
• Limits of the research
Limits
• Only on the general features of the child’s social scientific concepts, not on the features specific to them
• Too general and insufficiently differentiated in its approach to concept structure
• The nature of everyday concepts and the general structure of psychological development have not been resolved experimentally.
