Lev Vygotsky's Theory
The Basics
Lev Vygotsky was a Russian psychologist with the wide-ranging interest in literature, linguistics, sociology, philosophy and the arts. He began his higher education in medicine but switched to law. After graduation he taught literature at a provincial school but soon began to give lectures on psychology. He only lived from 1896 to 1934 but still managed to produce several major works. Unfortunately his work was not published until his death in 1934 and then in 1936 was suppressed in Russia. For over two decades his work was not known in the West, but in recent years Vygotsky work has become influential in western psychology and education.
Vygotsky was influenced strongly by the work of Pavlov, especially Pavlov's emphasis on scientific methods of investigation as opposed to introspection. However Vygotsky's interest were much broader than Pavlov's concept of the conditioned reflex. Vygotsky was also influenced by the writings of Karl Marx and by the Russian Revolution. Several ideas about society and about collective action found their way into Vygotsky's theories.
Vygotsky thought that the social world played a primary role in cognitive development. He saw language as a major tool not only for communications but also for shaping individual thought. He started cognition within a historical and cultural framework because he believes that was the only way that cognition could be understood. Vygotsky placed an emphasis on social and cultural aspects of learning. Certain aspects of Vygotsky's work have influenced education, especially his concept of the zone of proximal development. Many current constructivist ideas about instruction find their roots in Vygotsky.
View of Learning
Here is a comprehensive set of objectives for Vygotsky along with points based on these objectives:
1. Identify the influences on Vygotsky.
Vygotsky grew up in Russia at the time of the Russian Revolution. He was influenced by the collectiveness notion and the ideas of Marx and Lenin. His ideas are based on more than concepts about learning but rather reflect socialistic concepts about society at the time.
2. Describe how Vygotsky differs from behavioral theory.
Behavioral theory focused on the study of individuals in isolation. Vygotsky considered individuals in their historical and cultural context. Behavioral theory was highly empirical basing all their work on tangible, observable experiments with no explanation of what was going on internally. Vygotsky's work did not emerge from empirical research but rather was based on cultural theories and political/economic/social views of Communism held at the time of the revolution.
3. Describe Vygotsky's objections to behaviorism.
Vygotsky believed that human learning cannot be understood independently of social and cultural forces that influence people. Behaviorism ignored this and focused only on the individual. Vygotsky thought that behaviorism was too limited in its focus on only the observable forces acting in isolation on an individual ignoring everything that was going on internally. behaviorism paid no attention to social or cultural forces that influence learning and which were dominate features for Vygotsky.
4. Explain the influence of language on cognitive development.
Language is fundamental for Vygotsky separating him in many ways from Piaget. Piaget sees language simply as a means of communication. For Vygotsky language was a powerful influence on our thinking and our thoughts. Our words, our vocabulary, shape how we perceive the world and think about it according to Vygotsky. As our language becomes richer and deeper so too does our cognitive development.
5. Describe the basis for Vygotsky's emphasis on learning in a social setting.
Vygotsky emphasized learning in social settings because of the political views of Marx and Lenin who stressed society over the individual and who emphasized the obligation of people to contribute to the whole and to work in groups with shared ownership and responsibilities. Vygotsky wanted schools to mimic this.
6. Describe the relationship between learning and development.
Unlike Piaget Vygotsky held that social learning must precede and drive cognitive development. development arises when a person works in a social setting with others to develop shared meanings.
7. Describe the zone of proximal development including both the upper and lower limits of the zone.
According to Vygotysky (1976, p86) the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) is "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers". In essence the ZPD is that area bound on the lower level by tasks that a student can perform on his/her own without any assistance and on the upper area by those tasks that the student is unable to perform even with assi