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

Sat, March 22, 1:15 to 2:30pm, Palmer House, Floor: 5th Floor, The Chicago Room

Group Submission Type: Formal Panel Session

Proposal

This panel is a follow-up to a well-attended session at CIES 2023 which introduced the PLAY (Playful Learning Across the Years) measurement toolkit and described its development. The PLAY toolkit measures support for engaging children in their learning – a key aspect of learning through play. In this panel we report on the second phase of the project – PLAY 2.0 – which has involved supporting partner organizations to use the toolkit in order to learn more about their projects and to collect data on the relationship between ‘support for engagement’ and children’s learning outcomes. The panel includes a presentation from RTI International who, with NYU Global Ties, developed the toolkit, and from 3 partner organizations: the World Bank (in collaboration with the Center for Global Development), JET in South Africa and aeioTu in Colombia.

Relevance to CIES 2025
There is a long history of the study of students’ engagement in their learning (Wong & Liem, 2022). Recent interest in the topic has derived from the study of learning through play (Zosh et al., 2017), of which engagement is a key dimension (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2015). The concepts of ‘engagement in learning’ and ‘learning through play’ have relevance to two contemporary debates in global education. First, the measurement of reading and mathematics achievement to monitor the effectiveness of primary schooling has received substantial attention. But there have been calls to include domains such as social and emotional learning, civic engagement, digital literacy and other “21st century skills” in the goals of education systems (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2020; Mehta & Fine, 2019; Ramos, 2018). Some alternate pedagogical models, such as learning through play, have been proposed as the means to broaden the range of learning outcomes and further the 21st century skills agenda (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2020). Second, there has been a shift in focus in the past two decades from schooling to learning. However, little evidence of large-scale improvement in learning outcomes has surfaced since the establishment of these goals in 2015. A failure to improve learning outcomes may, in part, be due to the prevalence of “factory” models of education in much of the world, with an emphasis on rote instruction and memorization (Banerjee et al., 2017; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2020; Mehta & Fine, 2019; Rogoff, 2003). An alternate pedagogical model aims to support children’s engagement in their learning. Proponents argue that when children are engaged in their learning, they learn more deeply and improve their academic achievement (Reyes et al., 2012).

Conceptual framework
Engagement has been well characterized (Reeve & Tseng, 2011; Wong & Liem, 2022) as consisting of three components. Behavioral engagement involves applying effort, persistence, and attention to a task; emotional engagement is characterized by interest, enthusiasm and enjoyment; cognitive engagement involves active self-regulation and use of learning strategies when approaching a task.
As part of the development of the PLAY toolkit, we developed a conceptual framework to map out the types adult-child interactions found to promote children’s engagement. Our initial literature review identified 6 factors which, through empirical work in PLAY 1.0, we revised to four factors: support for exploration, support for agency, support for personal and social connection and emotional climate.

Research Questions for PLAY 2.0
1. To what extent is the 4-factor model of support for engagement, identified in PLAY 1.0, consistent with data collected in PLAY 2.0.
2. What is the relationship between ‘support for engagement’ measured by the PLAY tool and children’s learning outcomes.
3. What is the experience of partner organisations in using the PLAY tool? How has it been able to inform their programming?

Methods
Data are being collected by 5 partner organisations, The World Bank, JET, aeioTu, BRAC and Street Child, in 7 countries: Uganda, Sierra Leone, Ethiopia, South Africa, Bangladesh, Colombia and Peru. Each data collection focuses on primary classrooms, ECD classrooms, or caregiver-child interactions at home. For each participant group, there is an observation tool and an interview with an adult (a teacher in classroom settings and a caregiver in home settings) to assess self-rated behaviour. Each partner organization is collecting data using the PLAY measurement tool as well as data on learning outcomes. A key analysis examines the relationship between ‘support for engagement’ measured by the PLAY tool and children’s learning outcomes.

Contributions of Each Paper
The first presentation from RTI will provide an overview of the PLAY 2.0 project including how the toolkit was developed along with data on the properties of the toolkit. A presentation from the Center for Global Development will discuss findings from a World Bank study in three countries showing a strong relationship between ‘support for engagement’ and children’s learning. Presentations from JET, South Africa and from aeioTu, Colombia, will also include analyses of the relationship between ‘support for engagement’ and learning outcomes, along with an account of how the PLAY toolkit has helped the organisations reflect on and improve their projects.

Implications
The findings suggest that the PLAY measurement tool provides useful data for understanding pedagogical approaches that promote learning in low- and middle-income contexts. Numerous attempts have been made to introduce child-centered or play-based pedagogies into schools in LMICs. Many such attempts have been unsuccessful because they have not been adopted by teachers (Schweisfurth, 2011; Vavrus, 2009) or have been opposed by parents (Wolf, 2020). The PLAY measurement tool has been culturally adapted to measure pedagogical approaches that promote student engagement and yet are achievable and acceptable in contexts where teacher-directed instruction is the norm. In this way, the PLAY tool—and the instructional routines it assesses —provides the foundation for an effective approach to teacher professional development in such contexts.

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