Executive Summary of a Pilot Study for the Lego Foundation: A Cross-Cultural Study of Children?s Conceptions of Play and its Relation with Learning

CHENG, D. ; CREMIN, T.; GOLINKOFF. R.; POPP, J.; SCHEUER, N.; MUKHERKEE, S. J. ; SHIRILLA, M. ; BUGALLO, L.

2016-06-01/2016-10-10

1-16

Psicológica

Ciencia y cultura-Sistema educativo

Our aim was to understand young children's and adults' conceptions of play across five countries including Argentina, Denmark, England, Hong Kong (SAR of China) and the United States. Using a mixed method design including both quantitative and qualitative tasks, the researchers tested four children (two 5-year-old and two 7-year-old) and two adults per country. Participants were shown 18 cards representing Play activities and 18 cards showing Everyday activities (including, e.g., household chores). They were asked to carry out 3 tasks: 1. Sorting the cards into baskets they were told were for "play" and "not-play" and then again sorting into "learning" and "not-learning"; 2. Selecting the best example of play (and learning) and its opposite. Children's choices were then queried in a semi-structured interview; 3. Having children teach puppets about play andlearnin g. Key preliminary findings suggest:- The researchers' designated activities were considered as play by most participants across ages andcountries. There were variations by age of the participant and country of origin.- Children conceived play as something "fun" or something that makes them happy.- Activities that were functional in nature, related to learning, or were potentially dangerous, were not perceived as play.- Symbolic / sociodramatic activities shared with a peer or an adult were identified as the best exemplars of playful activities.- Participants recognized learning elements in some of the playful activities.The primary aim of the pilot study was to test the methodology and explore its potential to inform our research questions. The pilot clearly indicates that we are on the right track; children are pleased to interact with us, tosort the cards, to make selections, and to interact with the puppets. Participants recognized a majority of the depicted activities and distinguished between the happy and neutral expressions on the characters' faces.Drawing on both quantitative and qualitative data, our mixed methods approach highlights the richness of these results.The pilot data strongly suggest the huge potential for a further study with a greater number of participants to explore cross-cultural and developmental similarities and differences further. We are especially intrigued by thepreliminary finding that children think of play as something done for intrinsic satisfaction and recognize that learning takes place over time and feeds into their future lives. As the pilot was extremely successful, we anticipate making only 3 changes to the stimuli and procedure of the final study.In conclusion, this pilot study indicates that it is worthwhile to move forward with a larger sample. The methodology lends itself to understanding children's (and adults') beliefs about play and learning.