Correct Answer - Option 1 : assimilation is the use of existing schema, whereas accommodation is the creation of new schemas.
Jean Piaget, a prominent Swiss psychologist has immensely contributed to the understanding of children's cognitive development. He observed children over a period of years and noted that human behavior is an act of adaptation to the physical environment.
- Piaget used four processes of schema, assimilation, accommodation, and equilibration to explain the process cognitive development.
- The process of assimilation and accommodation are the crux of the interactions that are made with the environment.
Assimilation is understanding new objects or ideas with the existing capacity of understanding. Accommodation, on the other hand, is the tendency to adjust to a new object, that is to change one’s understanding to fit in the new object.
Let's Understand in Brief:
Assimilation:
- It is the process through which a child makes sense of experiences and perceptions by fitting them into the existing cognitive structures(schemata).
- For example, A child who is familiar with a cow on seeing a buffalo will adapt to the new experience by adding more information to the existing schemata of the four-legged animals (cow).
- In the classroom, when the teachers introduce new concepts they try to facilitate the process of assimilation by linking these concepts with already existing knowledge.
Accommodation:
- When the process of assimilation doesn't work because the new experiences do not fit into any of the existing schemata, a new schema will have to be developed to adapt to the new experience.
- This process of creating a new schema and adjusting to new ways of thinking and behaving by making modifications in one's existing cognitive structures is called accommodation.
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For example, if you are teaching about four seasons of the year to a class of students in Chennai, they may not have the schemata about the winter season as they do not experience winter in Chennai. Therefore, the children will have to create a new schema to organize the new information.
Thus, it is concluded that the main difference between assimilation and accommodation is that assimilation is the use of existing schema, whereas accommodation is the creation of new schemas.
