The Formal Operational stage is the fourth and final of the stages of cognitive development of Piaget's theory. This stage, which follows the Concrete Operational stage, commences at around 12 years of age and continues into adulthood. It is characterised by acquisition of the ability to think abstractly and draw conclusions from the information available. Developed first by Jean Piaget, the theory of cognitive development is based on schemas, or schemes of how one perceives the world, in critical periods -- times during which one is particularly susceptible to certain information. ... The concrete operational stage is the third of four stages of cognitive development in Piagets theory. ...
These stages were the sensorimotor period, the preoperational period, the concrete operational period and the formaloperational period.
In the preconceptual stage of thinking, children have a certain understanding of class membership, and can divide their internal representations into classes, however, they cannot differentiate between members of the class, so if they see two different members of a class at different times, they believe them to be the same object.
The stage of concrete operations is observed in children of approximately the ages of seven to eleven.
Because Piaget depicted the emergence of formal reasoning skills in adolescence as part of the normal developmental pattern, many constructivists have assumed that intrinsic motivation is possible for all academic tasks.
This paper argues that Piaget's concept of a formaloperationalstage has not been empirically verified and that the cognitive skills associated with that stage are in fact "biologically secondary abilities" (Geary and Bjorklund, 2000) culturally determined abilities that are difficult to acquire.
Formaloperational skills should not be thought of as skills that naturally unfold over the course of development, instead these are skills that are acquired with considerable effort and often require instruction.
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