Learning and the Development of Cognition

by Bärbel Inhelder, Hermine Sinclair, Magali Bovet

How do children learn and how are new modes of thought developed? These questions have for years been of paramount interest to psychologists and others concerned with the cognitive development of the child. In this major work, originally published in 1974 and reporting on over ten years’ research of the Geneva School, the authors carried the pioneering investigations of Jean Piaget to a new and remarkable level. As Piaget said in his foreword to the ‘The novelty of the findings, the clarity of the theoretical interpretation, and the sometimes even excessive caution of the conclusions enable the reader to separate clearly the experimental results from the authors’ theoretical tenets.’ The authors’ learning experiments with children were designed to examine the processes that lead to the acquisition of certain key concepts, such as conservation of matter and length. Detailed study of the progress of each individual subject revealed a number of features characteristic of situations that create conflicts in the child’s mind and certain regularities in the way these conflicts are resolved. Such data threw new light on the dynamics of the development of cognitive structures as well as on basic mechanisms of learning at the time.

308 pages, Hardcover

First published December 12, 1974

About the author

Bärbel Elisabeth Inhelder was a Swiss psychologist most known for her work under psychologist and epistemologist Jean Piaget and their contributions toward child development.
Born in St. Gallen, Switzerland, Inhelder initially showed interest in education. While attending high school she became interested in Sigmund Freud's writing and information on adolescents. She then moved to Geneva where she studied at the University of Geneva Institut Jean-Jacques Rousseau earning her bachelor's and doctoral degrees both in psychology. Inhelder continued her work at the University of Geneva up until her retirement. During her time at Geneva, she worked alongside Jean Piaget collaborating on experimental work targeted toward child development. Their collaboration began with her dissertation on children's conservation and continued for 50 years. Inhelder's work was significant in the discovery of the formal operational stage of child development occurring during the transition between childhood and adolescence. Inhelder and Piaget were joint on many publications of their research. Inhelder's contributions to developmental psychology resulted in her being elected as a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Bärbel Inhelder died in 1997 of natural causes and her work is still used in developmental psychology today.