ABSTRACT
Is Piaget’s constructivism still of any relevance to adult learning theory today? This provocative question deserves to be raised in the light of the numerous criticisms that can be – and have been – addressed to Piaget’s theory as a frame of reference for understanding adult learning. Let us remind ourselves of some of them. Piaget’s theory of intelligence implies that the most advanced stage of cognitive development, namely, the ‘formal operations’ stage, is to be attained at adolescence and that no further ‘progress’ can in fact be expected beyond this stage. This assumption has long been challenged by two major findings. One is that a more advanced stage of thinking can be observed beyond the formal operations stage, namely, ‘postformal thought’ (Baffrey-Dumont, 2000; Sinnott, 2009). Moreover, the very notion of development stages has long been questioned, at least in the area of adult education. For example, since the 1980s, the éducabilité cognitive (cognitive educability) movement has challenged the idea that the cognitive functioning of an adult at a given age can be wholly characterised by any single stage in all areas of his or her life (e.g. Paravy and Martin, 1996; Sorel, 1994). In other words, cognitive performance and development are, to a large extent, contingent to situations and activity domains. A similar argument can be found in the theory of Multiple Intelligences (Gardner, 2006, 2009). Piaget’s theory has also been criticised for its lack of consideration for the social dimension of learning,
from two points of view. First, his theory overlooks the importance of social interactions in learning (and more broadly, cognitive development). This criticism has been widely developed by some of Piaget’s colleagues in Geneva and gave rise to the so-called Post-Piagetian socio-constructivism movement from the late 1970s (Darnon, Butera and Mugny, 2008; Doise and Mugny, 1981, 1997; Mugny, 1985; PerretClermont, 1979). Second, from a historico-cultural perspective, Piaget’s theory could also be blamed for taking the developing and learning individual as an abstract ‘epistemic subject’ and for not sufficiently taking the cultural dimension of learning and development into account (Bruner, 1996; Smith, Dockrell and Tomlinson, 1997; Wenger, 1998; Wertsch, 1991; Wertsch, del Rio and Alvarez, 1995). Likewise, from an activity-theory perspective (Barbier and Durand, 2003; Durand, 2009; Engeström, 2009; Engeström, Miettinen and Punamäki, 1999), Piaget’s approach could also be challenged for tending to consider the learner’s interactions with the environment and the learning process as taking place in a ‘vacuum’, disconnected from the particular activity, situation and context in which it necessarily takes place. From an activity standpoint, learning is viewed as inherent in the activity itself, not the individual; it is a property
(the ‘transformative dimension’) of the activity, not the individual. From a similar standpoint, questions could also be addressed to a constructivist approach to adult learning as to its relevance to workplace and organisational contexts. Whereas much of the research on adult learning today focuses specifically on such contexts, this kind of setting was far removed, to say the least, from Piaget’s experiments with children. Yet another set of criticisms would concern the lack of consideration for the psychodynamic aspects of learning in Piaget’s theory. A significant part of research on adult learning today has focused on the relationship between the cognitive dimension of learning and psychodynamic variables such as biographies (Alheit, 2009; Dominicé, 2007), self-concept and identity (Barbier, Bourgeois, de Villers and Kaddouri, 2006; Bourgeois, 2006a, 2006c; Bourgeois and Nizet, 1999; Kaddouri, 2006), emotions and body (Damasio, 1994; Dirkx, 2001, 2006) and various motivational beliefs, such as perceived task value and expectancy (Bourgeois, 2009b). Let us admit that, in the light of so numerous, varied and convincing criticisms, it may seem difficult
today, at first glance, to keep claiming the relevance of Piaget’s theory for understanding adult learning. Nonetheless, we suggest that the challenge could be taken up, if we can clarify and discuss some major issues involved in those criticisms. Three of them appear to be particularly important.
