A study of preschool children’s motive orientation during science activities

CLARA VIDAL CARULLA, KARINA ADBO

Abstract

The results presented here are part of a two-year longitudinal study with two main objectives: 1) designing subject-specific science activities that provide experience of chemical phenomena and support positive emotions of science and 2) exploring preschool children’s emergent science. Science was introduced into the preschool setting in the form of conceptual play. Data was collected using visual-ethnography and analysed inductively to explore the dynamics of children’s development of motive orientation over a year of science activities. Results show the significance of the social environment for developing motives and influencing leading motives. The discussion highlights the necessity of considering both cognitive and emotional aspects within preschool science activities in order to be able to create positive cultural motives for science.

Keywords

Motive, preschool, science

Full Text:

PDF

References

Adbo, K., & Vidal Carulla, C. (2019). Designing play-based learning chemistry activities in the preschool environment. Chemistry Education Research and Practice, 20, 542-553.

Elkonin, D. B. (1999). Toward the problem of stages in the mental development of children. Russian and East European Psychology, 37(6), 11-30.

European Union. (2018). Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation). Retrieved from https://gdpr-info.eu/.

Fleer, M. (2009). Supporting scientific conceptual consciousness or learning in “a roundabout way” in play-based contexts. International Journal of Science Education, 31(8), 1069-1089.

Fleer, M. (2011). “Conceptual play”: Foregrounding imagination and cognition during concept formation in early years education. Contemporary Issues in Early Childhood, 12(3), 224-240.

Fleer, M. (2014). The demands and motives afforded through digital play in early childhood activity settings. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 3(3), 202-209.

Fleer, M. (2020). Studying the relations between motives and motivation - How young children develop a motive orientation for collective engineering play. Learning, Culture and Social Interaction, 24, 1-14.

Fleer, M., & Hedegaard, M. (2010). Children’s development as participation in everyday practices across different institutions. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 17(2), 149-168.

Goodwin, C. (2000). Action and embodiment within situated human interactions. Journal of Pragmatics, 32(10), 1489-1522.

Goodwin, M., Cekaite, A., & Goodwin, C. (2012). Emotions as stance. In A. Perakyla & M. L. Sorjonen (Eds.), Emotion in interaction (pp. 16-40). Oxford: Oxford Scholarship Online.

Hadzigeorgiou, Y. (2010). The role of wonder and romance in early childhood science education. International Journal of Early Years Education, 9(1), 63-69.

Hedegaard, M. (2002). Learning and child development. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.

Hedegaard, M. (2008). The educational experiment. In M. Fleer & M. Hedegaard (Eds.), Studying children: A cultural-historical perspective (pp. 181-201). New York: Open University Press.

Hedegaard, M. (2012). Analyzing children’s learning and development in everyday settings from a cultural-historical wholeness approach. Mind, Culture, and Activity, 19(2), 127-138.

Hedegaard, M. (2016). Imagination and emotion in children’s play: A cultural-historical approach. International Research in Early Childhood Education, 7(2), 59-74.

Hedegaard, M., & Fleer, M. (2013). Play, learning and children’s development. Everyday life in families and transition to school. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Melander Bowden, H. (2019). Problem-solving in collaborative game design practices: Epistemic stance, affect and engagement. Learning, Media and Technology, 44(2), 124-143.

Mondada, L. (2018). Multiple temporalities of language and body in interaction: Challenges for transcribing multimodality. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 51(1), 85-106.

Ochs, E. (1979). Transcription as theory. In E. Ochs & B. Schieffelin (Eds.), Developmental pragmatics (pp. 43-72). New York: Academic Press.

Pink, S. (2014). Doing visual ethnography (3rd edition). Australia: SAGE.

Sackes, M. (2014). How often do early childhood teachers teach science concepts? Determinants of the frequency of science teaching in kindergarten. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 22(2), 169-184.

Siraj-Blatchford, J. (2001). Emergent science and technology in the early years. Scientific and Technological Education for small children. Santiago: XXIII World Congress of OMEP.

Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2007). Creativity, communication and collaboration: The identification of pedagogic progression in sustained shared thinking. Asia-Pacific Education Research in Early Childhood Education, 1(2), 3-23.

Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2009). Conceptualising progression in the pedagogy of play and sustained shared thinking in early childhood education: A Vygotskian perspective. Education and Psychology, 26(2), 77-89.

Siraj-Blatchford, I. (2010). An ethnographic approach to researching young children’s learning. In G. Mac Naughton, S. Rolfe & I. Siraj-Blatchford (Eds.), Doing early childhood research: International perspectives on theory & practice (pp. 271-289). Oxford: Open University Press.

Siry, C., Ziegler, G., & Max, C. (2012). “Doing science” through discourse-in-interaction: Young children’s science investigations at the early childhood level. Science Education, 96(2), 311-326.

Sveriges Kommuner och Landsting. (2017). Fakta förskola. Retrieved from: https://skl.se/skolakulturfritid/forskolagrundochgymnasieskola/forskolafritidshem/forskola/faktaforskola.3292.htmle.

Swedish National Agency for Education. (2019). Curriculum for the preschool - Lpfö 18. Stockholm: Skolverket.

Thulin, S., & Redfors, A. (2017). Student preschool teachers’ experiences of science and its role in preschool. Early Childhood Education Journal, 45(4), 509-520.

Veresov, N. (2010). Introducing cultural-historical theory: Main concepts and principles of genetic research methodology. Cultural-Historical Psychology, 4, 83-90.

Vygotsky, L. S. (2016). Play and its role in the mental development of the child. International Research in Early Childhood Education, 7(2), 3-25.

Wardekker, W., Boersma, A., Dam, G. T., & Volman, M. (2012). Motivation for school learning: Enhancing the meaningfulness of learning in communities of learners. In M. Hedegaard, A. Edwards & M. Fleer (Eds.), Motives in children’s development. Cultural-historical approaches (pp. 153-169). New York: Cambridge University Press.


DOI: https://doi.org/10.26220/rev.3346

View Counter: Abstract | 550 | times, and PDF | 274 | times



Re S M ICT E | ISSN: 1792-3999 (electronic), 1791-261X (print) | Laboratory of Didactics of Sciences, Mathematics and ICT, Department of Educational Sciences and Early Childhood Education - University of Patras.

Pasithee | Library & Information Center | University of Patras