Correct Answer - Option 2 : kind; amount
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget (1896-1980) was the most well known and influential theorist for cognitive development. His views indicate that there is no knowledge that is pre-existing in the world such that it can be ‘taught’ to a child nor does knowledge comes innately (on its own) to the child. Knowledge develops when they act in the world.
- His theory also helps in understanding how children ‘construct’ knowledge. Thus, it is also known as a theory in ‘Constructivism’.
- Piaget realized that older children were able to answer more questions on the same test. Also, there were qualitative differences between the answers and the logic that the older children applied, but they are not quantitatively different.
- According to Piaget, children's thinking differs in kind from adults than in amount.
- That is, as compared to the younger children older children were able to apply logic which was more adult-like.
- Piaget further realized that incorrect answers given by children helped in analyzing children’s logic and thought better than the correct answers. Moreover, there was a similarity between the ‘incorrect’ logic among the children of the same age.
Hence, we can conclude that according to Piaget, children's thinking differs in kind from adults than in amount.
