Evidence for Learning: Play-based learning

Play-based learning is a foundational element of the early learning frameworks of state and national governments and is acknowledged as one of the key ways ​“children organise and make sense of their social worlds, as they engage actively with people, objects and representations” (Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations, 2009, p. 46). A child’s sense of self, others and community and all areas of their development are shaped by play-based learning. While there is global evidence showing the promise of play-based approaches, there have been comparatively few Australasian studies into the different dimensions of the issue.

Exceptions have included a study conducted in two kindergartens in New Zealand in which children co-produced impromptu storylines and used ventriloquism to talk objects into life (Bateman, 2018). This study suggested that dramatic play supported early literacy practices by encouraging children to orally construct characters and build coherent storylines. This form of dramatic play encouraged children to symbolise by representing one object for another and to co-construct meaning through paralinguistic resources. Fleer, Harrison, Veresov and Walker (2017) found that Lindqvist’s ​‘playworlds’ approach which highlights teachers’ involvement in children’s dramatic play, helped to develop play further and introduced more complexity. A central feature of this approach was the opportunity for teachers to have extended discussions with children before they entered into the imaginary world. Of note, Fleer is currently leading a five-year investigation into how play-based education can deliver essential cognitive and learning outcomes for infants, toddlers and pre-schoolers in the STEM domain.

Edwards and Cutter-Mackenzie (2011) studied the use of three play approaches to developing children’s environmental concepts in 16 early learning centres across Melbourne, Australia. Open-ended play, where children created their own understandings through play with materials, modelled play which involved a teacher showing children how to use materials, and purposefully framed play in which a teacher participated in a modelled play experience. Preliminary results suggested that even though children seemed to learn more in a modelled play experience, the other two play experiences deepened the learning. In turn, this depth of understanding provided children with the capacity to engage with and lead the other children in using the materials. Each approach offered different pedagogical strengths.

In more recent years play-based learning has gained momentum as a way of helping children to more closely connect to their physical world. Nature play emerging in Aotearoa early childhood settings provides an opportunity for children to experience a stronger connectedness to place and to deepen their spiritual inter-relationship with the land, mountains, rivers, and oceans (Alcock & Ritchie, 2018). Bateman and Roberts (2018) contend that pretend play in natural spaces provides an opportunity for children to develop in important areas of morality.

In conclusion, Edwards and Cutter-Mackenzie (2011), in a review of the literature on child-centred pedagogy suggested that play-based learning needs to incorporate children’s cultural competencies, involve the educator in helping children make connections to concepts and content and be based on carefully planned learning outcomes. Moving away from a child-centred orientation to a focus on the dynamics between the child, educator and content.