Designing Innovative Guided Play Experiences to Empower Parents and Engage Preschool-Age Children in STEM Learning

父母对儿童早期基础科学、技术、工程和数学(STEM)技能的发展有很大的影响。这种影响在很大程度上是通过好玩的亲子互动和对话发生的，这些互动和对话让孩子们以有趣和有用的方式接触到数学和空间概念。例如，学龄前儿童的父母经常被鼓励使用拼图、棋盘游戏和建筑活动来培养孩子的空间思维和早期数学技能。然而，像这样以掌握为导向的玩具通常会引发高度结构化的互动，父母会指导孩子遵循明确的循序渐进的指导和游戏规则。尽管这种家长指导的游戏可以在STEM中建立内容知识，但它几乎没有鼓励支持STEM教育和成就的那种内在动机的发现、生成性合作和创造性的解决问题的技能。这项服务实践项目的研究旨在了解父母如何与学龄前儿童一起玩耍，以培养孩子的STEM技能，同时支持孩子的社交-情感技能。因此，这项研究有可能促进关于在资源不足和人口稀少的社区增加非正式学习机会的有效战略的知识，这些社区进入儿童博物馆和其他非正式学习机构的机会有限。在三年的时间里，来自阿巴拉契亚农村社区的大约135名儿童和父母预计将参与这项研究，该研究分为三个阶段。在第一阶段，将使用以人为中心的设计流程来开发和完善游戏指南和家长支架，以促进富有成效的假装游戏，其特点是快乐和创造性地解决问题，以及以数学和空间概念和推理为特色的丰富的亲子对话。在第二阶段，将制定和验证措施，以操作和编码这种富有成效的亲子游戏，游戏指南将在当地的儿童博物馆进行测试和完善。在最后阶段，一项正式的实地测试将调查外展方案的可行性和可接受性，这些方案涉及随着时间的推移使用游戏指南。与对照组相比，干预前、干预中和干预后的措施将评估项目对儿童STEM和社交情绪技能获得的影响。该项目的预期成果将是基于研究的教育材料，这些材料以产生空间和数学思维以及家长/孩子对话的方式说明和支持假装游戏。这些材料将提供给家庭和非正式学习从业者。该项目由推进非正式STEM学习计划(AISL)资助，该计划旨在促进对非正式环境中STEM学习的设计和开发的新方法和基于证据的理解。这包括为扩大获得和参与STEM学习经验提供多种途径，在非正式环境中推进对STEM学习的创新研究和评估，以及加深参与者对更深层次学习的理解。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Parents exert a strong influence on the development of foundational science, technology, engineering, and mathematical (STEM) skills in early childhood. This influence occurs, in large part, through playful parent-child interactions and conversations that expose children to mathematical and spatial concepts in interesting and useful ways. For example, parents of preschool children are often encouraged to use puzzles, board games, and construction activities to foster children's spatial thinking and early math skills. However, mastery-oriented toys like these typically elicit highly structured interactions, with parents directing children to follow explicit step-by-step instructions and game rules. Although this kind of parent-directed play can build content knowledge in STEM, it does little to encourage the kind of intrinsically-motivated discovery, generative collaboration, and creative problem-solving skills that support STEM education and attainment. This research in service to practice project seeks to understand how parents can play with their preschool children in ways that build children's STEM skills while also supporting children's social-emotional skills. As such, this research has the potential for advancing knowledge on effective strategies for enriching informal learning opportunities in under-resourced and sparsely populated communities where access to children's museums and other informal learning institutions is limited. Over a period of three years, approximately 135 children and parents from a rural Appalachian community are expected to participate in this research, which is organized into three phases. During Phase 1, human-centered design processes will be used to develop and refine play guides and parent scaffolds that promote productive pretend play, which is characterized by joyful and creative problem-solving and rich parent/child conversations featuring mathematical and spatial concepts and reasoning. In Phase 2, measures will be developed and validated to operationalize and code this kind of productive parent-child play and play guides will be tested and refined in a local children's museum. In the final phase, a formal field test will investigate the feasibility and acceptability of outreach programming involving the use of play guides over time. Pre-, mid-, and post-intervention measures will estimate program impact on child STEM and social-emotional skill acquisition, relative to a comparison group. An expected outcome of the project will be research-based educational materials that illustrate and support pretend play in ways that generate spatial and mathematical thinking and parent/child conversations. These materials will will be made available to families and informal learning practitioners. This project is funded by the Advancing Informal STEM Learning (AISL) program, which seeks to advance new approaches to, and evidence-based understanding of, the design and development of STEM learning in informal environments. This includes providing multiple pathways for broadening access to and engagement in STEM learning experiences, advancing innovative research on and assessment of STEM learning in informal environments, and developing understandings of deeper learning by participants.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.