ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 addresses the most central notion m Piaget's theory, that of a structure. It is difficult to see how any theory which purported to describe the growth of knowledge in an individual could be without it. In Piaget's theory, cognitive structures lie between the general invariants of function and the specific variants of content. They form a bridge between the data of perception on the one hand and abstract thinking on the other. However critical one may be of the particular structural analysis that Piaget has made it must be acknowledged that he has insisted on the central importance of the concept for a psychological theory in an area where its central position has sometimes been overlooked. The gaining of knowledge involves the connecting of ideas, beliefs and information into some kind of coherent, structured pattern.
