Abstract
BACKGROUND: Piotr Ya. Galperin and his collaborator Nina F. Talyzina performed solid experimental work which led them to propose the theory of stage-by-stage formation of mental actions and concepts, as well as a method to investigate cognitive processes, whose conceptual and procedural streamlining demands analysis and systematization. OBJECTIVE: To investigate the formative experiment of P.Ya. Galperin and N.F. Talyzina, with the aim of analyzing their contributions to the method of psychological investigation of cognitive processes. DESIGN: The article is part of a theoretical research project on developmental didactics systems, of which the Galperin-Talyzina system is one. Russian works by the two authors and their translations into English, Spanish, and Portuguese, as well as works by other psychologists and educators from the Galperin-Talyzina school, were sources of the work. RESULTS: The experiments of P.Ya. Galperin and N.F. Talyzina studied, promoted, and analyzed the assimilation of new knowledge and mental actions, by introducing different conditions. The article systematizes the stages and procedures of such experiments, as well as the series and steps of diagnosis of the developmental level and the formation of mental actions and concepts, in relation to the type of Orienting Basis of an Action (OBA). CONCLUSION: The theory was built on the basis of simultaneous production of a method to study the genesis of the cognitive processes and the theory of stage-by-stage formation of mental actions and concepts; it led us to define the method of P.Ya. Galperin and N.F. Talyzina as a gradual formation experiment.