COGNITIVE-DEVELOPMENT THEORIESTheoretical analysis of Jean Piaget’s Cognitive-Development Theory to Lev. S. Vygotsky’s Cultural-Historical Theory of Psychological Development

Most learning theories concentrate and show particular events and conditions that are essential in the learning, that is acquisition of knowledge, language, and other specific skills. We saw this first in Classical Conditioning of Pavlov, and Operant Conditioning of F. W. Skinner, and later on in Cognitive theories of Bandura. First two theories emphasize on ‘purely instinctive’ learned operations, and explain all learning behavior in these terms (of reinforcements). Bandura on the other hand concentrates much more on the mental, cognitive operations and processes that happen inside our brains. Cognitive Development theorists initially follow in Bandura’s steps, but depart from that road, where they first identify the capabilities that represent the highest levels of human thought, and than they describe the events and conditions necessary to attain these levels of thinking. They stress that, higher levels of human thinking cannot be taught directly.
The two cognitive-devel...