Arizona Educator Proficiency Assessments (AEPA) 2025 – 400 Free Practice Questions to Pass the Exam

In Piaget's theory of cognitive development, assimilation refers to the process in which individuals use their existing schemas to interpret and understand new experiences or information. This means that when encountering something new, a person will fit this new information into their already established mental frameworks or schemas without changing the framework itself.

For example, if a child knows the schema for a dog, which includes features like four legs and fur, when they see a new breed of dog they have never encountered before, they will use their existing understanding of dogs to interpret this new experience. The child will identify the new breed as a dog because it fits into their existing schema for dogs. This process allows for continuity and stability in cognitive development, as new experiences are absorbed into familiar patterns of thought.

The other options highlight processes that are distinct from assimilation. Adapting current schemas to new experiences refers more to the concept of accommodation, where the existing schemas are adjusted in response to new information that cannot fit into the current schemas. Completely changing existing beliefs would also imply a more profound transformation than what assimilation entails, as it suggests a fundamental restructuring rather than simple adaptation. Lastly, formulating new concepts from unfamiliar information hints at the creation of entirely new schemas, which again aligns more with accommodation rather