Perspectives of play and play-based learning: What do adults think play is?

Abstract

Adults, including early childhood teachers and caregivers (i.e., parents, carers, kinship members), have an important role in supporting young children’s learning through play in early childhood. However, little consideration has been given to the relationship between these significant adults’ perspectives of play and the play experiences of young children. Various conceptualisations of play and play-based learning influence the decisions adults make about the provision of play in early childhood. This can make it difficult to support adults in their understandings of the need for play in young children’s lives. We propose that more needs to be known about what significant adults think play is. This new knowledge would enhance professional learning and parent education programs in the early childhood education and care sector for increasing children’s opportunities to learn through play.

Stakeholder perspectives of PBL and their involvement in the implementation of play pedagogy in selected Schools offering ECE in Southern and Central Zambia

“…For this reason, this study explored stakeholder (community, parents, ECE teachers) perspectives of PBL and its possible influence on their participation in the implementation of play pedagogy. This is supported by McLean et al. (2023) who observe that various perspectives and conceptualisation of play-based learning have an influence on the decisions that people make about their involvement in play in early childhood education.…”

“…This discrepancy has continued to be a source of concern regarding teachers lacking training in PBL, inadequate PBL material and infrastructure in the ECE setcor in Zambia (Lungu and Matafwali, 2020). The conceptualisations of the importance of play-based learning which are perceived by teachers, has a lot of influence on the implementation of play-based learning involving a home-school cooperation (Đurišić and Bunijevac, 2017;McLean et al, 2023). Various conceptions of the importance of play-based learning included supporting the acquisition of different skills by learners and stimulation of interest to participate in learning, learning with ease in which learners might not even realise, that PBL promotes a foundation for early learning in school and the general development of a child.…”

“…The home-school cooperation brings in the role and functions of parents in the implementation of PBL for early learners both in school and at home. Literature shows a general agreement among ECE researchers, scholars and practitioners (Keung and Cheung, 2019;McLean, Lake, Wild, Licandro, and Evangelou, 2023) that parents have a significant role in supporting children to learn through play, thus, crucial in the implementation of play-based learning. Despite this evidence, Monkevičienė et al (2017) observe that the involvement of adults in children's play needs more research because the area remains unclearly understood and practised.…”

Le concept de perezhivanie pour étudier la complexité des interactions entre l'enfant et l'environnement socioculturel

“…Pour ce faire, nous aborderons son sens commun avant de la définir comme phénomène et concept scientifique, dans le contexte des écrits de Vygotski. Le second objectif vise à exposer la pertinence et la puissance de son utilisation dans le cadre de la recherche en éducation, et plus particulièrement à l'éducation préscolaire, afin de bonifier l'expérience du jeu des enfants (McLean et al, 2023).…”