Young children\u27s collaborative interactions in an educational computer environment

This study investigated the collaborative interaction patterns exhibited by five-year old pre-primary children in an educational computer environment. The case study method was used in one pre-primary centre in metropolitan Perth, Western Australia, to examine the patterns of collaborative interaction among young children whilst engaged with the computer. The one event case study was of the interactions exhibited by pre-primary children whilst engaged, in dyads, with the computer within a naturalistic classroom environment. This study involved three phases of data collection. Phase I consisted of observations and videotaping sessions, compilation of written observations, narrative descriptions and relevant field notes on each participant. To assess the children\u27s current social skills and computer competence and their general social interaction with peers, the researcher interviewed the children and their teacher using a semi-structured interview schedule to guide the discussion. Phase IT comprised reviewing and transcribing the videotapes and coding children\u27s interactions, while Phase III consisted of analysing all the data obtained. Both observational comments and descriptions and data analyses were presented with anecdotes. 243 interactions were identified and classified into 16 interaction patterns. They were: directing partner\u27s actions; self-monitor/repetition; providing information; declarative planning; asking for information/explanation; disagreeing with partner; accepting guidance; terminal response; exclaiming; correcting others; defending competence; showing pleasure; showing displeasure; sharing control; defending control; and suggesting ideas. Frequency of occurrence of identified interactions was analysed in the form of descriptive statistics. Factors facilitating the collaborative interaction of children whilst engaged with the computer activities were found to be: developmental appropriateness of the software; preexisting computer competency between children; children\u27s preexisting positive attitude towards computer; mutual friendship between collaborators; children\u27s social goals; appropriate structure of enjoyable learning environment; mutual understanding of turn-taking system; and positive non-isolated physical settings of the computer environment. Factors inhibiting collaborative interaction were identified as: non-developmentally appropriate software; lack of computer competency between children; negative attitude (on the part of both children and teacher) towards computer and learning; sense of competition between collaborators; social goals of each child; inappropriate structure to promote enjoyable learning environment; no mutual understanding of turn-taking system; and isolate physical settings of the computer environment. Associated with the findings were three major variables: (1) the classroom teacher variable (philosophy and educational beliefs, task-structure and computer management); (2) the software variable (developmentally appropriateness, content, design, and programmed task-structure); and (3) the child variable (computer competency and attitude towards computer, social goals, social skills, and personal relationship with collaborators). By identifying the collaborative interactions of children, and factors that may facilitate or inhibit these interactions, early childhood educators will be in a better position to integrate the computer into their classroom and to promote positive prosocial interaction among children whilst engaged at the computer. In general, findings suggest that computers should be integrated into all early childhood classrooms and afforded the same status as other traditional early childhood learning materials and activities

Preschool Children’s Cooperative Problem Solving during Play in Everyday Classroom Contexts: China and the US

There is value in studying young children’s cooperative problem solving (CPS) during play in different cultures since children in our society will continue to face problems that are not unique to a particular culture, but also relevant to people from other countries. Cognitive development theory and sociocultural theory contend that play contexts can support children in the construction of their knowledge through explorations with different play materials and engagement in social interactions with peers during CPS experiences. However, there is a lack of research studying children’s CPS during play in their everyday preschool classrooms, and particularly, cross-culturally. Therefore, this dissertation, that includes three manuscripts, was designed to investigate (a) preschool children’s different patterns of engagement in play and CPS in Chinese and US preschool classrooms and (b) their teachers’ beliefs about their roles and pedagogical decisions for supporting children’s CPS in particular settings in these two cultures. In the first manuscript, a systematic literature review was conducted framed by PRISR, and it was found that there is a lack of cross-cultural studies that have investigated (a) preschool children’s CPS during play in their everyday classroom contexts and (b) teachers’ roles in children’s development of CPS. These research gaps were addressed in the second and third manuscripts by conducting (a) a 10-month, ethnographic informed observational study in a Chinese kindergarten and a US preschool center that included (b) semi-structured, teacher interviews with the integration of the visual stimulated recall approach. The data and findings are presented, based on over 960 minutes of (a) 16, four- and five-year-old children’s video recordings, (b) six classroom teachers’ interview transcriptions from two early care and education centers, and (c) the researcher’s field notes and journal entries. Findings support that there were cultural and gender differences in children’s engagement in their types of play (constructive play, fantasy play, and rough-and-tumble play) and CPS (debating and mentoring). Further, teachers in both cultures showed similarities and differences, within and across the cultural contexts, in their beliefs and pedagogy regarding their image of the child, their role as teachers, and their arrangements of classroom environments

Children’s Reporting of Peers’ Behaviour

This thesis describes a mixed-methods investigation of young children’s everyday social communication, focusing on tattling—the reporting of a peer’s negative behaviour to an audience. There are links between tattling and the development of gossip, and thus with the evolution of cooperative norms in humans. Tattling is a daily activity for many children, but has been little studied, especially in preschool contexts. \ud Quantitative sampling and participant observation are used to characterize behavioural reporting among 3- to 4-year-olds in 2 preschools in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Quantitative sampling shows that children in these populations are biased towards reporting negative actions by peers; that they are more likely to report actions of which they themselves are the victims; that they usually tell the truth; that their reports are rarely ignored by staff; and that there are relationships between frequency of tattling and measures of social dominance and relational aggression. Participant observation shows that tattling takes place in a complex social context; that children are generally aware of its effects; and that it is driven by a range of motivations, both self-oriented and group-oriented. \ud Two story recall experiments are described, aimed at testing the hypothesis that negative bias in children’s reports arises from the greater salience of negative behaviour. The experiments do not support this hypothesis, further strengthening the idea that children are acting out of strategic considerations when they report peers’ transgressions. Behavioural reporting in preschool contexts is compared with a sample of transcripts of children’s discourse recorded in 1970s England and stored in the CHILDES database. Examples of tattling and gossip are also found in the eHRAF ethnographic database. The thesis concludes with an interactionist model of the development of tattling and gossip, in which third-party mediation helps to integrate the affective and normative components of children’s developing moral systems.\u