Playful learning across the years (PLAY) 2.0: Findings from a toolkit to assess classroom support for engagement in learning

• In Event: Pedagogical practices for engaging student in their learning: latest research findings from the PLAY measurement tool

Proposal

The Playful Learning Across the Years (PLAY) toolkit is in its second stage of development (PLAY 2.0). In this presentation we begin with a brief explanation of the framework that led to the identification of ‘support for engagement in learning’ as the concept underpinning the toolkit. We provide an overview of the toolkit designed for use across age groups and settings to measure support for child engagement: For ages 0-2, it includes tools to examine caregiver support via a direct observation and an interview. For ages 3-5, tools are available to examine both home and classrooms settings. For ages 6-12, tools examine classroom settings through an observation, an inventory, and interviews of teachers and students. Thereafter, we summarize the activities from the first stage of the toolkit. This includes its use in four countries in three phases: Build, to understand local concepts of learning, engagement and play; Adapt, to refine the tools; and Test, to assess the psychometric properties. The first stage results and how they informed the refinement of the tools from six constructs to four (support for exploration, support for agency, support for social connection and support for emotional climate) will be presented.

Now in its second stage, the PLAY 2.0 toolkit is being used by multiple implementing partners (IP’s) with mentorship from research partners, in five countries (Bangladesh, Colombia, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Uganda) across seven contexts. The purpose of this stage is to further examine how adult-child interactions in home and classroom settings support children’s engagement in learning. Guided by our contextualization framework, we describe how the core toolkit was adapted to fit each context prior to a field test, which informed tool adjustments for larger pilots, and then, ultimately, full data collection in 150 settings per context. The use of the toolkit is stradled by a baseline and endline of child outcomes appropriate for that age of development (e.g., math, language and social-emotional learning for children ages 6 to 12) allowing us to explore the influence of the setting on those skills. We share examples from the core toolkit, describe steps to achieve coding consistency across raters, present item-level results, and provide initial analysis on the utility and efficacy of the toolkit. We also share preliminary results of the relationship between engagement and learning outcomes and the toolkit’s sensitivity to teacher professional development interventions.

Authors

• Margaret Peggy M Dubeck, RTI International

• Matthew Jukes, RTI International