Dimensions of Participation in a Playful Parenting Community of Practice

• In Event: Communities of Play: Learning Together to Improve and Scale Playful Learning

Proposal

The Playful Parenting Community of Practice (CoP) serves to foster a culture of knowledge exchange and community building amongst partners within a global Playful Parenting portfolio. The community is composed of partners implementing and researching playful parenting programs at scale in five countries: Bhutan, Guatemala, Rwanda, Serbia, and Zambia. Implementation research on the programs examines scale up processes and programmatic decisions across countries, generating impact and scale up evidence to fuel learning discussions. The CoP offers partners a safe space to proactively explore lessons learned and collectively brainstorm strategies to overcome challenges faced.

Ongoing feedback loops and a systematic investigation into community members’ perceptions of their participation have played a central role in shaping the Playful Parenting CoP. In late 2022, the community held its first in-person CoP meeting, where 30 participants joined a three-day meeting. The in-person modality provided an opportunity to integrate new facilitation styles, add activities situated to member country contexts, as well as engage new participants.

An instrument was developed to better understand members’ experiences of virtual vs. in-person meetings, based on three core dimensions of CoPs, including mutual engagement, shared repertoire, and joint enterprise (Lave & Wenger, 1998). All three work in tandem to contribute to learning situated in social participation, an additional construct Neufeld et al. (2013) included in their evaluation of a community of practice.

The survey was administered before the in-person meeting (n = 16) and after the meeting (n = 17) to examine participants’ perceptions of connectedness, belonging, and learning, as well as their views on the virtual vs. in-person modalities. In-depth interviews were conducted with a purposeful sample to dig deeper into some of the emerging themes. On connectedness, we saw disagreement with “I can reach out to other community members…” disappear after meeting in person, indicating members felt more comfortable engaging with their peers. At the same time, high levels of disagreement were still present with the statement, “I frequently interact with this community” across modalities – pointing to the remaining challenge of maintaining space for the CoP among their daily responsibilities. On belonging, we similarly saw greater levels of agreement with participants, highlighting the importance of cultivating a sense of safety to share challenges internally, while also wanting to enhance the CoP’s belonging to the wider ECD community. Several changes have been implemented for the CoP in response to the data, from establishing an online resource repository to defining key thematic areas to explore as a community.

In early 2024, the study will be replicated to examine how these changes have influenced community perceptions of the CoP value. The second in-person meeting will be held at this time, also allowing for additional examination of the differences between modalities. This presentation will cover the results of the second study, comparing community experiences of participation with the original study and capturing reactions to changes implemented since the first in-person meeting. It will offer insight on the utility of different approaches for increasing participation, as well as making that participation more meaningful.

Authors

• Tanya Smith-Sreen, FHI 360

• Carina Omoeva, FHI 360