Concept of Orienting Activity as Means of Analysing Mental Development in Ontogenesis

Piotr Galperin's introduction of the concept of orienting activity resulted in the radical shift in a wide range of important issues in Russian psychology, such as the problem of learning/development relationship, understanding of the content and mechanisms of the zone of proximal development, interpretations of 'Piaget's phenomena' etc. The paper reveals the role of orienting activity in the 'cognitive learning' procedure developed within the Geneva school of psychology that, as the authors put it, reconstructs "the autonomic process of new operational structures construction". The key role of orienting activity as a means of mental development analysis is illustrated in the study of combinatory thinking development in primary school age children and adolescents carried out in the form of an educational experiment based on Galperin's method of stage-by-stage formation of mental acts and concepts.

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1. Burmenskaya G.V., Kurbatova M.B. Eksperimental'no-psihologicheskii analiz "kognitivnogo obucheniya" Zh. Piazhe // Voprosy psihologii. 1983. № 2.
2. Burmenskaya G.V., Evdokimova L.V. Formirovanie kombinatornogo myshleniya u mladshih shkol'nikov i podrostkov // Voprosy psihologii. 2007. № 2.
3. Vygotskii L.S. Problema vozrasta // Sobr. soch.: V 6 t. T. 4. М., 1984.
4. Gal'perin P.Ya. Tipy orientirovki i tipy formirovaniya deistvii i ponyatii // Doklady APN RSFSR. 1959. № 2.
5. Gal'perin P.Ya. Psihologiya myshleniya i uchenie o poetapnom formirovanii umstvennyh deistvii //Issledovaniya myshleniya v sovremennoi psihologii / Pod red. E.V. Shorohovoi. M., 1966.
6. Gal'perin P.Ya. Obuchenie i umstvennoe razvitie v detskom vozraste / P.Ya. Gal'perin. Psihologiya kak ob'ektivnaya nauka. M.; Voronezh. 1998.
7. Inel'der B. Razvitie predstavlenii o sluchainosti i veroyatnosti v detskom vozraste // Zhan Piazhe: Teoriya, eksperimenty, diskussii. M., 2001.
8. Obuhova L.F. Etapy razvitiya myshleniya v detskom vozraste. M., 1972.
9. Obuhova L.F., Korepanova I.A. Zona blizhaishego razvitiya: prostranstvenno[1]vremennaya model' // Voprosy psihologii. 2005. № 6.
10. Inhelder B., Sinclair H., Bovet M. Learning and the development of cognition. Cambridge, 1974.
11. Piaget J. Introduction // Inhelder B., Sinclair H., Bovet M. Learning and the development of cognition. Cambridge, 1974