How Conceptual PlayWorlds Create Different Conditions for Children’s Development Across Cultural Age Periods – A Programmatic Study Overview

Introduction

A focus on the cognitive development of young children in preschool settings has emerged over time as greater attention is given to the importance of this particular cultural age period by governments around the globe. Learning outcomes are now stated explicitly in curricula by many educational systems, and policymakers have increased their expectations for the learning of concepts by preschool children. This had placed new demands on early childhood teachers and raised expectations by families and the public for an increased cognitive load on children. Interestingly, the original research that propelled the prominence and importance of the early childhood period featured play as the leading activity of the preschool child. Yet in some countries, play as the source of development for the preschool child has diminished in time and prominence in teacher programs. More needs to be known about balancing play and learning (see Veraksa, Sheridan, & Colliver, 2021).

The current policy context and intensified educational push have resulted in a resurgence of play research. This paper contributes to the current interest by presenting an overview of a five-year programmatic study into the play and learning of STEM concepts by children in the birth to five/six-year cultural age period. The programmatic study showcased in this paper is grounded in cultural-historical theory and L.S. Vygotsky’s view of child development.

The central problem of the study is to understand the relations between imagination in play and imagination in STEM through an intervention called Conceptual PlayWorld, and then to determine what this means for teacher pedagogy and children’s development across the cultural age periods from infancy to school age. The overarching results could make a significant contribution to understanding the effects of an increased cognitive load on children.

To achieve the objectives of this paper, a discussion of child development is followed by an overview of the programmatic study design, and highlights of what has been learned to date. The paper concludes by projecting forward and discussing the future needs for play research.

Background to the Programmatic Research

What has emerged from the background research into the relations between play and STEM learning is, first, a cultural-historical synthesis of these two binaries of play and learning as Conceptual Play (Fleer, 2011a). Second, further foundational research into STEM learning and play has brought forward the Conceptual PlayWorld as a teaching model (Fleer, 2018a; 2019a) which was iteratively refined across the areas of STEM. For example, Scientific PlayWorlds (Fleer, 2017a), Digital PlayWorlds (Fleer, 2017b; 2017c), and Engineering PlayWorlds (Fleer, 2020a). The result was the Conceptual PlayWorld intervention and this is foundational for the programmatic research reported through a series of studies shown in Tables 2 to 4. Third, specific attention has been directed to the place of girls and women in STEM (Fleer, 1990; 2021a). This has been taken forward through additional studies reported in Table 3 (Stephenson, Fleer, & Fragkiadaki, 2021; Stephenson, Fleer, Fragkiadaki, & Rai, 2021 a, 2021b; Utami, Fleer, & Li, 2021). Prior research into the reconceptualization of research into executive functions in the context of playworlds also provided additional insights into play and learning in preschool settings. See https://www.monash.edu/conceptual-playworld for the characteristics and video practices of the Conceptual PlayWorld model.

Cultural Age Periods

In order to understand the current changing conditions of the preschool child, it is necessary to return to Vygotsky’s (1998) original theorisation of child development. By better understanding the transition points over the cultural age periods of the child, we can conceptualise “crisis” as a scientific construct and use it for analysing the new developmental conditions created. We are specifically interested in the differing cognitive load afforded during conceptual learning across the different cultural age periods.

Crisis is a powerful cultural-historical concept that simultaneously considers both the social situation of the child and what Vygotsky called “the social situation of their development.” This matters because the current social situation of the child, with its greater cognitive load, creates new developmental conditions that our programmatic research sought to better understand. Bodrova (2008) has rightly argued over the years how in the US context, with its “schoolification” of preschools (discipline outcomes with more school like practices), this social situation has negatively affected children’s ability to engage in imaginary play. Her work signalled early on some important changes in the social situation of children in the US, and the corresponding impact on the children’s social situation of development. Like the canary in the coal mine, children not knowing how to imaginatively play suggested that a serious problem was emerging.

According to Vygotsky (1966), imaginary play is a key characteristic of the activity and thinking of the preschool child. But we must conceptualise this activity within the whole system of a child’s development, and this means exploring a child’s leading activity at different moments along the cultural age periods and studying the dynamics of the social situations within which crises or transitional points emerge. In so doing, it becomes possible to analyse how the current changing context affects children’s development, and what researchers and educational systems need to better understand so that the scenario described by Bodrova becomes less widespread.

Vygotsky (1998) did not focus on biological milestones as his method of dividing children’s development. He suggested that most approaches to child development took an evolutionary perspective, where single traits of observable biological changes were the main measure of development. Here he suggested that “development is nothing other than realization, modification, and combination of deposits [sic; should be translated as “combination of inborn potentials”—ed.]” or it is viewed as “a continuous process of self-propulsion” in which “Nothing new develops…” (p. 190). In his revolutionary view of development, however, he suggested that “We must consider its dynamics and the dynamics of transitions from one age level to another” (p. 190). As a child enters into a period of crisis, rather than noting disruptions and changes, Vygotsky argued that we must pay attention to the fact that the child loses interest in activities s/he was once interested in. Vygotsky pointed to behaviour as indicators, whereby “the child becomes relatively difficult due to the fact that the change in the pedagogical system applied to the child does not keep up with the rapid changes in his [sic] personality” (pp. 193–194). For example, Mariane Hedegaard (2009) showed how a preschool child’s leading activity to learn, as was the dominant practice in the home, created tension in the kindergarten because the teacher’s pedagogical practices fostered a warm and cosy play environment, with no pressure for learning to write or read. The child’s motive for learning was not being supported, and his relations with his kindergarten teacher became difficult.

Vygotsky (1998) further argued that the “general structure of consciousness changes at each given age” (p. 197). He pointed to how each cultural age period was “characterized mainly by a certain system of relations and dependences between its separate aspects and separate forms of the individual’s activity” (p. 197). Vygotsky conceptualised these into a general theory of child development, where neoformations and critical ages of the peaks and troughs of the crisis emerge. His general theory of periodisation clustered around: Crisis of the newborn; Infancy (2m – 1yr); Crisis of age one; Early childhood (1–3yrs); Crisis at age three; Preschool age (3–7yrs); Crisis at age seven; School age (8–12yrs); Crisis at age 13; Age of puberty (14–18yrs); Crisis at age 17.

The motive orientation of the child changes across cultural age periods and this is captured by a “dialectical process in which a transition from one stage to another is accomplished not along an evolutionary, but along a revolutionary path” (p. 193). This dialectical process is described as, “Critical periods alternate with stable periods and [these] are turning points in development” (p. 193; my emphasis). Important in our research has been noting the changes or turning points of development under the new conditions of STEM learning.

Vygotsky conceptualised his theory of child development broadly into these cultural age periods, with the characteristics of each period involving a particular social situation of development. This conception captured through the term “cultural age periods” is distinguished in this paper from a focus on the biological or passport age of the child and the associated milestones of development normally presented in Western contexts. But Vygotsky’s theorisation was done during the historical period of the former Soviet Union, at a particular point in time where when travel, the Internet, YouTube, and smartphones had not entered into the daily lives of children, families, and educational settings. These phenomena give access to broader and richer cultural experiences for expanded conceptual thinking, which would be absent from theorisation about the cultural age periods Vygotsky presented. However, still relevant is his premise that the transition from one leading activity and system of human relations to another constituted a whole reconstruction in which the child’s relation to his or her environment changes. It is this change in the child’s relationship to the environment that is of interest in our research. Vygotsky (1998) conceptualized this as the social situation of development:

…at the beginning of each age period, there develops a completely original, exclusive, single, and unique relation, specific to the given [cultural] age, between the child and reality, mainly the social reality, that surrounds him [sic]. We call this relation the social situation of development at a given age. The social situation of development represents the initial moment for all dynamic changes that occur in development during the given period. It determines wholly and completely the forms and the path along which the child will acquire ever newer personality characteristics, drawing them from the social reality as from the basic source of development, the path along which the social becomes the individual. Thus, the first question we must answer in studying the dynamics of any age is to explain the social situation of development (p. 198).

Vygotsky also suggested that when studying children’s social situation of development, it becomes important to ask how neoformations develop from the life of the child in his or her social situation. With changing societal values towards more learning in preschool, and the introduction of new institutional contexts that support these values by increasing the cognitive load of children in play-based settings, how do these new social situations for learning affect children’s development? As noted by Vygotsky (1998), “Pedagogy during the critical ages is least developed in practical and theoretical respects” (pp. 193–194; my emphasis), and this question remains relevant today, because societies continue to change, and new institutional practices emerge and bring forward new conditions for children’s development.

Methods

The goal of the programmatic research was to understand children’s development in play-based settings where an intervention of a STEM PlayWorld was introduced. Initially drawing inspiration from Gunilla Lindqvist’s playworld (Lindqvist, 1995), a model was developed from foundational research into play and learning of STEM (Fleer, 2018a). Known as a Conceptual PlayWorld, storybooks and drama were used to create new conditions for children’s play. A STEM PlayWorld brings drama into the adventures that are role-played by children and teachers. But unlike in other playworlds (see Fleer, 2020a), a problem arises in the play that needs a STEM solution – such as, how to design an escape plan in the role-play of Robin Hood. But different cultural age periods demand different kinds of drama and social relations, as well as new kinds of pedagogical practices for collective play and imagining. This was an important focus during the research period.

In order to realise complex research over a five-year period, the programmatic research was conceptualised as three pillars of activity. An overview of each pillar follows (also see Fleer, Fragkiadaki, & Rai, 2020a).

Pillar 1: Foundational Research into Concept Formation in STEM across Cultural Age Periods

This research is following a cohort of 130 infants from diverse early childhood settings over five years, in order to gain insights into the unique nature of imagination in STEM and how it changes in relation to the different cultural age periods and the learning contexts of infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers. The goal is to deepen our understanding of what conceptual play is for infants and toddlers, and how it is supported during the different cultural age periods in diverse play-based settings.

Pillar 2: Generate Scholarly Knowledge about How Families Create the Conditions for Creative Cognition

Using digital tools to document children’s play and everyday interactions related to STEM at home (e.g., cooking, building, washing) gives insights into what STEM concepts mean for families and gives deeper understanding about the nature of children’s cultural development of STEM concepts in the home. The focus of this pillar is understanding how gender, culturally and linguistically diverse children (CALD), inclusion, socioeconomic status (SES), and geography shape possibilities in STEM experiences in the home and community. The research also examines how family pedagogy productively contributes to STEM thought in young children. In building upon a successful digital ethnographic approach for researching the everyday lives of families (Hedegaard & Fleer, 2013) and government-funded research for improving conceptually oriented interactions in families and childcare centres (Fleer & Raban, 2006), 100 children and their families from different CALD contexts and geographies are being followed for 12 months (families will also use a protocol and app to digitally capture activities and family pedagogy between visits). A second set of families have been participating in the Conceptual PlayWorld intervention through zoom technology with a storyteller. Cohorts are drawn from playgroups, visitors to the botanical gardens, and other such community groups. The study is ongoing, and the results are not reported in this paper.

Pillar 3: A National Evidenced-Based Model of Intentional Teaching of STEM for Play-Based Settings

The studies from Pillars 1 and 2 contribute to understanding how adults create the conditions for creative cognition using the STEM Playworlds model for infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers. How educators intentionally teach STEM concepts through a STEM Playworlds model will vary across Australia due to the unique characteristics of geography, educator expertise and support, SES, etc. Determining how STEM learning is best promoted in play-based settings is key for building teacher confidence and competence for particular cultural age periods, where a diversity of contexts and experiences shapes how children engage in STEM.

A total of 3,000 diploma and degree-qualified early childhood teachers were targeted and are currently being surveyed using Qualtrics, and from this cohort a subset of 150 teachers attending professional development (PD) is currently being studied. This in-depth study of the teachers is currently underway.

Analysis

Analysing data from the individual pillars, as well as bringing together the data from across the pillars, demands a complex set of concepts. Within Vygotsky’s system of concepts are powerful interrelated analytical concepts, as shown in Table 1, that were and are currently being used. Some practice examples of data are also showcased in Table 1.

Table 1

The theoretical and analytical framework guiding the programmatic research based on previous foundational research

Results

Although the research is midway through the five-year programmatic study, there have been significant developments in understanding how imagination in play and imagination in STEM have affected the children’s development. A summary of the key findings is presented in Tables 2–5, alongside a discussion of the collective significance regarding the impact of increasing the cognitive load of children across cultural age periods.

In previous research, it was determined that very little is known about how infants, toddlers, and pre-schoolers engage in conceptual thinking in STEM. Much of the previous research has been oriented to school contexts, leaving a gap in comprehensive understanding of how children in play-based settings think and act scientifically (Fleer, 2017a), technologically (Fleer, 2016), and in relation to engineering (Fleer, 2020a). Table 2 adds to this through a comprehensive review of the literature (O’Connor, Fragkiadaki, Fleer, & Rai, 2021), which identified that the focus of research on the infant and toddler period has been associated with the processes, but not necessarily with scientific thinking. However, when infants and toddlers do participate in a STEM Conceptual PlayWorld, different conditions are created that bring infants and toddlers together in emotionally charged play situations with drama and action, and where a form of conceptual reciprocity emerges through the drama of the story and joint adventures (Fleer et al., 2020a). Early findings are also showing that a sense of collective imagining in rudimentary STEM emerges (Fragkiadaki, Fleer, & Rai, 2021a; 2021b; 2021c). We now know how imagination as a psychological function emerges in infancy in group settings, when a Conceptual PlayWorld is used by teachers. We found that a) by participating in the imaginary situation as a play partner, teachers introduced an advanced form of imagination into the infants’ environment and invited the infants to join collective forms of imagining; b) infants recognized and responded to the invitations for collective imagining coming from the teacher and their peers through imitation and the use of diverse signs; c) the infants developed a motive orientation to the collective imagining through experiencing the imaginary situation within the activity settings; and d) the infants’ collective imagining with the adult was enriched and extended as well, and was developed in dialectic interrelation with the transformation of the group relations within the activity settings (Fragkiadaki et al., 2021b). This is in keeping with previous research with preschool-aged children, where a Conceptual PlayWorld creates a sense of collective engineering play (Fleer, 2020a) and a form of theoretical thinking and motive orientation to STEM emerges during older children’s conceptual play (Fleer, 2011a; 2020a). When taken together, it seems that a sense of collectiveness is key for building imagination, and early forms of collective imagining appear during infancy under the conditions of a Conceptual PlayWorld (Fragkiadaki et al., 2021b). But more needs to be known about the everyday phenomena that engage infants in collective imagining and how this orientation to a phenomenon changes into a motive orientation to particular STEM concepts later in the preschool period.

Table 2

The nature of children’s imagining of concepts changes over the different cultural age periods

The second preliminary finding to emerge from the research being undertaken in the PlayLab is related to better understanding the impact of the new pedagogical conditions created by the intervention of a Conceptual PlayWorld. In Tables 3 to 5, the impact is studied in relation to children’s imaginary play and conceptual STEM thinking (Table 3), teacher development (Table 4), and girls’ engagement in STEM (Table 5).       

In studying the effects of a conceptual PlayWorld on children’s imagining of concepts, it was identified that because the teachers were inside the imaginary play as play partners, they supported the active imagining of the children and this in turn appeared to support the development of children’s play to be collective, and this in turn meant mature forms of play were being enacted and modelled.  That is, more complex role-oriented play with complex rules was experienced. Teachers regularly changed the meaning of objects and actions in the imaginary situation to give them a new sense.  A Conceptual PlayWorld created new conditions for children’s play and development (Fleer, 2021a), which meant that collective imagining in a Conceptual PlayWorld acted as an important precondition for consciously realising the new roles and rules associated with a Conceptual PlayWorld, where curriculum concepts come into the children’s play (Fleer, 2021a). But under the conditions of free choice time, where children generated their own Conceptual PlayWorld (Fleer, 2021b), the children on their own could not bring out the scientific conception of the curriculum concepts that the teachers had introduced. Interestingly, the child-initiated Conceptual PlayWorld showed how children do pay close attention to the new practices of teachers introducing STEM concepts into play-based setting.  The Conceptual PlayWorld appeared to create motivating conditions for children during free choice time in preschool, which in further research showed how children became motivated to learn STEM concepts (Fleer, 2021c).

In subsequent research we found that the drama of the play narrative within the collective imaginary play situations amplified the need to find solutions to the problem that had arisen in the story. In that study into the genesis of design thinking, it was found that design problems could be both posed in relation to children’s play narrative or arose in child-initiated play.  The drama of the story appeared to drive design work. The finding that designing for the children was about imagining something that did not yet exist was important for understanding engineering and design principles in STEM learning. Imagination could be shown in a drawing. The Conceptual PlayWorld gave a level of authenticity, a sense of drama, and importantly, it developed a motive orientation towards design. Design concepts (plan view, side view, 3-D, 2-D) were introduced as part of the children’s play. Play was creating the conditions for giving a purpose to the design work. Play gave possibilities to extend children’s designed solutions, but also to iteratively develop their design ideas. It was found that a Conceptual PlayWorld acted as a source of development of design concepts for preschool children (Fleer, 2021c).

Table 3

Under the conditions of a Conceptual PlayWorld, imagination develops and play matures

The positive impact of a Conceptual PlayWorld on teacher development also emerged as an important finding to date. Whilst most studies into teacher confidence and competence in STEM teaching focus on what teachers do not know (Gomes & Fleer, 2017; 2018), the Conceptual PlayWorld, acts as a credit model (i.e., builds on teachers’ strengths) in designing play-based programs where program goals are oriented to both learning and overall child development. Table 4 brings forward the impact of a Conceptual PlayWorld by drawing out how teachers’ conceptions and activities change as they engage in new pedagogical practices of a Conceptual PlayWorld within their preschools.

During professional development of Conceptual PlayWorld, it was identified that it was not teacher knowledge of STEM that was the impediment to teaching STEM, but rather teachers’ pedagogical knowledge of how to bring in STEM concepts into children’s play that needed support. Teachers wanted to know how to set up an authentic problem for children to solve within the narrative of the children’s play. The study also found that when teachers participated in professional development of a Conceptual PlayWorld, their view of science as a static body of scientific knowledge to be taught was reconceptualised as a new pedagogical practice where the drama of the problem being introduced into the play narrative drove children to want to learn scientific concepts to act in service of their play. This re-orientation was more in keeping with the purpose of play in preschools, whilst at the same time amplifying the play as dramatic and rich with STEM learning possibilities.  The new practices and re-orientation afforded through Conceptual PlayWorld enhanced confidence and competence in STEM teaching (Fleer, Fragkiadaki, & Rai, 2022). But it was also learned that the professional development experience not only developed teachers’ theoretical thinking, but demanded that they draw upon their own highly developed psychological functions of imagination to collectively imagine the new practices with their peers (Fleer et al., 2022). Professional development of early childhood teachers needs to be more than just knowledge about a new model. It requires teachers to collectively imagine how to bring the new practices into their preschools – acting “as if” in the Conceptual PlayWorld, piloting ideas together. Teacher imagination was found to be core for professional development. Further, teachers’ theoretical thinking developed through the process of imagining the new practices and implementing their own Conceptual PlayWorld. Teacher imagination has not been discussed in the PD literature to date.

Table 4

Under the conditions of a Conceptual PlayWorld, teachers change from real relations to play relations, affording new kinds of practices and conditions for children’s development

The programmatic study has shown that a lack of teaching STEM in preschools is not a problem of practice or of teacher knowledge, but rather a problem of having an appropriate teaching model for play-based settings. When different kinds of research questions are asked, different types of findings become evident.  Similarly, the age-old problem of the scarcity of girls and women in STEM has also not changed over 20 years. The problem needed to be viewed differently, and new kinds of studies designed and different research questions asked. Table 5 summarises how introducing a Conceptual PlayWorld created motivating conditions to support girls’engagement in STEM. Girls were not excluded from STEM activities in the preschool, but rather through the play inquiries, with their focus on solving social problems through STEM, the girls’ actions and thinking were constantly validated and affirmed by the teachers who were present in the imaginary situation with all the children (Fleer, 2021a). The children and the teachers had a common narrative. But the traditional areas, such as the block area and construction areas, which have commonly been dominated more by boys, also changed. It was found that the block area resourced the imaginary play situation in ways that are in keeping with the drama of the story, where the traditional areas and materials took on different roles in children’s collective play. Redefining the spaces and the materials changed how children played and interacted in these traditional areas. Because girls had more access and stayed longer in these areas, they developed more technical experience and heard more technical language from the teachers. This positively affected their confidence and competence in STEM. On the other hand, when outside of the Conceptual PlayWorld without their teachers (Stephenson et al., 2021b) or when no Conceptual PlayWorlds was being undertaken (Fleer, 2021b;Stephenson et al., 2021a), girls had limited opportunities and were actively excluded by boys. Conceptual PlayWorlds changed girls’ opportunities in STEM (Stephenson et al., 2021). We also found that Conceptual PlayWorlds developed and studied in Indonesia (Utami et al., 2021) opened up opportunities for children to explore different roles. Additionally, teachers in role-play could model different ways of being a character in the story, and for girls and boys to experience non-traditional and non-stereotyped gendered roles during their imaginary play.

Table 5

Conceptual PlayWorlds create motivating conditions for girls’ engagement in STEM in the early years

Findings are still emerging in relation to methodological and digital innovations (see Fleer, 2014; 2016; 2017b, 2017c; 2018b; 2020b; Fleer et al., 2020; Rai et al., 2020), impact found in international contexts (Li, Fleer, & Yang, 2021; Meng et al., Fleer, Li, & Hammer, 2021; Utami, Fleer, & Li, 2020), and as previous data relevant to the programmatic study continue to be analysed, greater insights emerge over time (Fleer, 2018a; 2018b; 2019a, 2019b; 2020a; 2020b; 2020c).

Conclusion

We have learned from the programmatic research about the transformative role of a Conceptual PlayWorld for teachers and children for dealing with the central problem of increasing the cognitive load of children. The four areas identified (see Tables 2–5) focus on how a Conceptual PlayWorld changes the conditions of children in group settings, how teacher practices within play-based settings also change, and how these new social situations impact children’s social situation of development across cultural age periods, especially in relation to girls’ participation in STEM.

The studies show how early forms of imagining begin and the key role teachers play in this process within group settings. It is not just the nature of the concepts for each cultural age period that must be considered and identified, it is also how imagination forms, develops, matures, and becomes imaginary play as the leading activity within the cultural age periods. Conceptual PlayWorlds as a teaching model appears to fit well with supporting the maturing function of imagination, yet this dimension in STEM education research has not received the attention it deserves. Further research across more diverse settings, and with larger groups of teachers and children, is still needed to be confident of these findings.

The programmatic research also shows the nature of the development of a collectiveness in the infancy and toddler period, where it is seen as a form of togetherness, through to the preschool period where collective play appears to take centre stage. Collective play is a key outcome of Conceptual PlayWorlds because it creates conditions to support a high level of shared understandings, shared imaginings, a common narrative, and common play action. Stories become important in creating a shared narrative, togetherness, and collective play, because in a Conceptual PlayWorld, teachers and children work with an ideal form (Vygotsky, 1994) of the story, whilst leaving space for children’s initiatives and agency in play and in STEM concept formation. Together, the concepts of collective play and the development of shared imagining from infancy have created new developmental understandings. This outcome has emerged through addressing the problem of an increased cognitive load of children and its effect on their development. By considering this problem in relation to the different cultural age periods, we have learned of the central place of imagination and imaginary play, acting as a vortex for metaphorically bringing concepts into children’s play in ways that are authentic, meaningful to their everyday lives, and act in service of their play. That is, a Conceptual PlayWorld as an intervention across the cultural age periods positions conceptual learning as taking place during children’s play rather than being delivered as isolated learning moments, as has traditionally been conceptualised in the schoolification agenda.

It is through programmatic research that it becomes possible to study the microgenetic development of children, whilst also studying the impact of changing pedagogical practices on teachers’ development. Rather than viewing the problem of limited STEM teaching by finding out why early childhood teachers do not teach STEM concepts, the programmatic research asks different kinds of questions. Through drawing on previous foundational research, where conceptual play and the Conceptual PlayWorld model were the outcomes, this programmatic research was able to more confidently create interventions in professional development for teachers across Australia and internationally. We identified that teachers developed theoretical thinking during the process of their professional development (which included implementation of the intervention in their classroom/centre/family day care). Teachers moved from the problem of identifying a concept and knowledge of STEM, to creating dramatic, imaginary play conditions in which authentic problems emerge which need STEM solutions. Further, the research showed how teachers changed their practices from being outside of imaginary play situations to being a play partner in character within the play. These new conditions not only supported the sense of togetherness of infants and toddlers and collective play of pre-schoolers, but also ensured girls’ access to STEM activity, STEM technical language, and the development of a motive for STEM learning. The imaginary Conceptual PlayWorlds disrupted the activity and interactions in the traditional areas within a preschool, such as the block corner. This meant that new ways of playing happened in the preschool, as imaginary situations were resourced through accessing the areas for materials, rather than as ways of traditionally playing. Teachers being inside the imaginary play was shown to be new and challenging. However, in the drama and excitement of the children’s play, teachers became motivated towards the new model, the pedagogy, and their changing position from outside of children’s play to being inside the imaginary PlayWorlds. In PlayWorlds, teachers amplified, supported, extended, and modelled STEM and play practices, but also followed and enriched the children’s own play initiatives. Conceptual PlayWorlds meant that mature forms and rudimentary forms of play co-existed and interacted, supporting the maturation of the children’s play. Conceptual PlayWorlds was positively viewed by teachers, because it transformed the institutional practices and the way children entered into, shaped, and were shaped by the maturing play that was being enriched by the STEM actions, thinking, and solutions. Further research into the impact of the intervention of a Conceptual PlayWorld will give more confidence in the preliminary results to date. More research within Australia’s culturally and linguistically diverse settings and geographically isolated regions is needed, as is the study of the impact of a Conceptual PlayWorld on children and teachers in different countries. This future research will give further insights into how to support children’s development in times of schoolification.

Limitations

Indicators of key developmental outcomes are documented in the studies reported, and whilst significant, they cannot yet be generalized beyond the study sample due to the small sampling and specific pandemic context of the research. That is, the programmatic research has not yet achieved the sample sizes it expected due to the global pandemic.  Australia has been met with severe institutional access restrictions by the Departments of Education to protect all participants in education, including the researchers.

Acknowledgements

Australian Research Council [FL180100161].

Ethics Statement

The participation of families, children, teachers and researchers

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