Introduction
Through this work, the aim is to get to know the theories of Jean Piaget, which will allow us to discover aspects of great importance in relation to the development of the Stage of Formal Operations.
The more data obtained from the campus, the more beneficial it will be to design strategies and achieve results. It is for this reason that it has requested information regarding the generic behavior of boys, in order to get to know them and establish good communication / relationships.
During the development of this work, analyzes, conclusions and thus determine the influence of these particular conditions on the experimentation and manifestations of feelings, emotions and behavior in the team.
A brief bibliographic reference will be made about Piaget, in order to get to know about the history of this outstanding psychologist. In relation to his theories, various concepts will be discussed, such as schema, structure, organization, adaptation, assimilation, accommodation and balance. Similarly, reference will be made to the cognitive theory of this author, giving greater emphasis to the Stage of Formal Operations.
Definition of basic concepts of Piaget's theories
Scheme: Represents what can be repeated and generalized in an action; that is, the schema is that which actions have in common, for example "pushing" an object with a bar or with any other instrument. A schema is an operational activity that is repeated (initially reflexively) and universalized in such a way that other non-significant previous stimuli become capable of eliciting it. An outline is a simplified image (for example, a city map).
Piaget's theory deals first with schemas. Schemes are reflex behaviors at first, but later include voluntary movements, until later they become mainly mental operations. With development new schemes emerge and existing ones are reorganized in various ways. Those changes occur in a certain sequence and progress according to a series of stages.
Structure: They are the set of responses that take place after the subject of knowledge has acquired certain elements from the outside. Thus, the central point of what we could call the theory of the manufacture of intelligence is that it is "built" in the head of the subject, through an activity of the structures that feed on action schemes, that is, of regulations and coordination of the child's activities. Structure is nothing more than a balanced integration of schemas. Thus, in order for the child to move from one state to another with a higher level of development, he has to use the schemes that he already has, but at the level of structures.
Organization: It is an attribute that has intelligence, and is formed by the stages of knowledge that lead to different behaviors in specific situations. For Piaget an object can never be perceived or learned in itself but through the organizations of the actions of the subject in question.
The function of the organization allows the subject to preserve in coherent systems the flows of interaction with the environment.
Adaptation: Adaptation is always present through two basic elements: assimilation and accommodation. The adaptation process seeks at some point stability and, at others, change.
In itself, adaptation is an attribute of intelligence, which is acquired by the assimilation by which new information is acquired and also by the accommodation by which they adjust to that new information.
The adaptive function allows the subject to approach and achieve a dynamic adjustment with the medium.
Adaptation and organization are fundamental functions that intervene and are constant in the process of cognitive development, both are inseparable elements.
Assimilation: Assimilation refers to the way in which an organism faces a stimulus from the environment in terms of current organization. "Mental assimilation consists of the incorporation of objects into patterns of behavior, patterns that are nothing else but the framework of actions that man can actively reproduce in reality" (Piaget, 1948).
Overall, assimilation can be said to be the fact that the organism adopts substances taken from the environment into its own structures. Incorporation of the data of the experience in the innate structures of the subject.
Accommodation: Accommodation implies a modification of the current organization in response to the demands of the environment. It is the process by which the subject adjusts to external conditions. Accommodation not only appears as a need to submit to the environment, but it is also necessary in order to coordinate the various assimilation schemes.
Balance: It is the unit of organization in the knowing subject. They are the so-called «bricks» of the entire construction of the intellectual or cognitive system, they regulate the subject's interactions with reality, since they in turn serve as assimilating frameworks through which new information is incorporated into the person.
Cognitive development begins when the child realizes an internal balance between accommodation and the environment that surrounds him and the assimilation of this same reality to its structures. That is, the child, as she relates to her environment, will incorporate the experiences into her own activity and readjusts them with the experiences obtained; For this process to take place, the balance mechanism must be presented, which is the balance that arises between the external environment and the internal structures of thought.
Cognitive theory
Cognitive Development Division:
Piaget's theory discovers the stages of cognitive development from childhood to adolescence: how psychological structures develop from innate reflexes, are organized during childhood in patterns of behavior, internalized during the second year of life as models of thought, and develop during childhood and adolescence in complex intellectual structures that characterize adult life. Piaget divides cognitive development into four important periods:
Piaget cognitive development
Sensory-motor stage
The child's behavior is essentially motor, there is no internal representation of external events, nor does he think through concepts.
Stadium:
Stadium mechanisms congenital reflexes.
Stage of primary circular reactions: They occur between the first and fourth month of extrauterine life. At that moment the human develops primary circular reactions, that is, he reiterates casual actions that have caused him pleasure. A typical example is sucking on your own finger, a substitute reaction for sucking on the nipple - although the sucking reflex of your own finger already exists in intrauterine life.
Stage of secondary circular reactions: Between the fourth month and the year of life, the infant orients his behavior towards the external environment seeking to learn or move objects and already observes the results of his actions to reproduce such sound and obtain again the gratification that provokes.
Coordination stage of previous behavior patterns.
Stadium of new discoveries by experimentation.
Stage of the new mental representations.
Age: 1 to 2 years
Per-operational stage
It is the stage of thought and language that graduates its ability to think symbolically, imitates objects of conduct, symbolic games, drawings, mental images and the development of spoken language.
Stadium:
Pre-conceptual stage.
Age: 2-4 years
Intuitive stage.
Age: 4-7 years
Concrete Operations Stage
Reasoning processes become logical and can be applied to concrete or real problems. In the social aspect, the child now becomes a truly social being and at this stage the logical schemes of seriation, mental ordering of sets and classification of the concepts of chance, space, time and speed appear.
7-11 years
Formal Operations Stage
At this stage, the adolescent achieves the abstraction of observed concrete knowledge that allows him to use inductive and deductive logical reasoning. Develops idealistic feelings and continuous personality formation is achieved, there is further development of moral concepts.
Age: 11 years and up
Formal operations stage
Now the boy (12-15 years old, according to Piaget), takes into account the possible, not just the real. It is the highest degree of abstraction of thought. The adolescent becomes something like a theoretician, because this thought allows him to make cabals about different ideas.
At this stage thought is propositional, that is, language is used as an element of reasoning (thinking aloud). This propositional character takes conditional forms (if A, then B); uses combinatorial logic as a tool, which is essential for the control of variables in an experiment or in a problem.
It allows you to think about your own thinking, which is directly related to metacognition.
Adolescent thinking advances in three ways: Basic cognitive skills continue to develop, logic emerges, and intuitive thinking becomes more streamlined and more precise. Let's look at each of these three changes.
According to Piaget, at this stage children resort to inductive reasoning and it is not until adolescence that deductive reasoning develops.
Inductive reasoning
Modality of logical reasoning that goes from particular observations of the elements of a class to a general conclusion about that class.
Deductive reasoning
Modality of logical reasoning that goes from a general premise about a class to a conclusion about a certain element or several of the class. Intellectual progress.
Basic cognitive skills.
Selective attention unfolds with greater skill. Meta-memory and metacognition help them improve their student status. Brain maturation also continues. Myelination continues and the reaction time is shorter. Teens are able to learn, connect, and refute ideas much faster than children. It also increases memory, not only implicit but also explicit memory. Improve language proficiency.
Hypothetical thinking is thinking that involves reasoning about propositions that may or may not reflect reality. For young children the possibilities imagined. In adolescents, the possibility takes on a life of its own.
New analytical and logical skills.
Jean Piaget was the first to observe these "deductive reasoning and hypothetical thinking" skills. What I call formal operational thinking and identified it as the fourth and final period in the cognitive development sequence, this arises from a combination of maturation and experience. The adolescent's thinking is qualitatively different from the child's thinking. You simply do not agree whether this change can happen suddenly or gradually.
The explanations also differ. Information processing theorists describe a new and higher level of cognition that results from cumulative progress in processing and memory. Sociocultural theorists point to the intellectual advancements that occur when teens enter high school. Epigenetic systems theory suggests that just as genes trigger reproductive potential at puberty, genes allow for intellectual deepening through the brain's new neural networks.
Hypothetical-deductive thinking.
The most prominent feature of the change in cognition that occurs in adolescence is the ability to think in terms of possibility and not only in terms of reality. This allows the adolescent to think independently of traditional ways and beliefs.
This kind of thinking that starts from the possible is called hypothetical-deductive thinking, because a hypothesis is something that is possible but has not yet been proven and because the deductions are logical but not necessarily real.
Cold logic is not always the best, psychologists proposed a fifth stage, which they called post-formal thinking to reconcile logic with experience.
Variations in cognition.
Thanks to hypothetical thinking and deductive reasoning, teens are able to think more and more flexibly and have more resources to do so. However, many adolescents perform quite poorly on standard deductive reasoning tests, such as balance balance tasks. The operational thinking formally not always shown in adolescence.
Adolescents apply formal logical thinking to some situations but not others. Other researchers highlight the importance of human relationships and cultural contexts in the adolescent's progress towards formal operational thinking.
The most intuitive and emotional thinking.
The third change at the adolescent cognitive level is the greater importance of intuitive thinking. The fact that adolescents can use hypothetical-inductive reasoning does not necessarily mean that they use it in practice.
The human has two modes of information processing, parallel and interact with each other. Both modes progress through adolescence:
- The first type is hypothetical-deductive, logical-formal thinking, described by Piaget. It is called analytical processing. Analytical thinking requires a certain level of intellectual maturity, brain power, motivation, and practice.
- The second type of information processing begins with a belief or an idea and quickly and uncritically develops supporting ideas as if the original beliefs were made. This is called intuitive thinking whereby ideas are discovered and applied, rather than hypothesizing and analyzing them. It is fast and powerful.
Analysis
In general, it can be said that cognitive development occurs with the reorganization of cognitive structures as a consequence of adaptive processes to the environment, from the assimilation of experiences and their accommodation according to the previous baggage of the cognitive structures of the apprentices. If the physical or social experience conflicts with previous knowledge, the cognitive structures rearrange to incorporate the new experience and it is what is considered learning. The learning content is organized in knowledge schemes that present different levels of complexity.
Considering that the members of the Tahuichi Aguilera academy, their ages are below 15 years, it is important to make an analysis, it is also necessary to reflect on how such an important issue becomes a complicated process.
We add to this, that athletes are subject to constant competition and evaluation factors, and fame, success, defeat, motivation, pressure, and personality traits are inserted into it, all linked to each other.
The athlete's fast pace makes adolescents think too quickly about themselves, even those who achieve formal thinking may lose their logical objectivity. Adolescents worry about how others perceive them, try to catalog their feelings about their parents, school, their social status, their economic status, and close friends; They think in depth and meditation on experiences underlies reflection and self-awareness, and all these feelings and emotions are incidents for their sports performance on the court.
These new introspective adventures are part of the expansion of self-awareness. However, they are often distorted by adolescent self-centeredness. They often see themselves as much more significant on a social level than they really are. Younger teens tend to guess what others may be thinking, a little success is a complete change of their personality, they create a false idea of invincibility, the idea that they cannot be defeated, and not even damaged by something that could defeat any mortal. They are also convinced that they will never be victims, like others, of the dangerous behaviors they assume.
Young people do not feel comfortable in the broader social world, for these some are obsessed with their image before appearing in public, the way they dress, the haircut and the excess of extravagance are pillars of their self-esteem.
Conclusions
In the elaboration of this investigative work, it has been possible to get to know aspects of great help about the theories of Jean Piaget. For the technician it will be of great help, it will allow him to understand how the cognitive development of human beings works, in its various stages of learning, and especially in the formal operations stage.
Aspects such as the basic concepts of Piaget's theories, fundamental to achieve knowledge and understanding for the application of his theories, were discussed.
In relation to Piaget's cognitive theory, it was explained in a simple and exemplified way what is the division of cognitive development, what are the types of knowledge that are developed in children and how can cognitive development be optimally achieved. All cognitive theory is explained with the applicability of the basic concepts of the theory, and by means of simple examples it is possible to understand in a practical way what its possible applicability is.
Come to understand that young athletes go through the different stages of human development, which unfortunately cannot be ignored, that everyone will live this experience more than others, and it is essential and necessary for the technician to know what these stages are about.
From what has been investigated, it is possible to recognize the importance that sport and physical activity have during the adolescence stage, acquiring habits of compliance with the norms and rules in each sport, assimilating in the adolescent age what will be lived in the adult.
With the practice of sport, the changes will be less traumatic since the large number of changes that occur in both the physical and mental spheres are accompanied, determining a new body scheme that requires acceptance and incorporation.
There are undeniable benefits that these activities bring to the body in muscle strength and development, in the strengthening of personality, in the achievement of personal goals and in interpersonal relationships that are fostered by shared, supportive attitudes that develop in a healthy framework, thus warding off the possibility of social illnesses, such as addictions and eating disorders.
The adolescent athletes live in constant evaluation of the results, they train all week and they see the result at the weekend with the game of the game. This leads them to not be afraid of challenges and to be evaluated, and they handle continuous improvement very much.
In summary, adolescent sport contributes to preserving health, considered by the WHO as a "bio-psycho-social balance, essential for the development of life".
Reference Bibliography
Piaget Jean, The birth of intelligence in children, Aguilar, Madrid 1972.
Piaget Jean, Psychology of intelligence, 20th century, Buenos Aires 1966.
Piaget Jean, Six Studies in Psychology, Seix Barral, Barcelona 1973.
