Relations of Dynamic Aspects of Motives in Infant-Toddler’s Play: Enhance Small Science Learning Experience

Abstract

Motives as a psychological concept are vital for understanding play and how a play motive influences children’s learning and development (Fleer, Early learning and development: cultural-historical concepts in play. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2010). Play provides space for the conscious realization of everyday concepts (Fleer, A cultural-historical perspective on play: Play as a leading activity across cultural communities. In Pramling-Samuelsson I, Fleer M (eds) Play and learning in early childhood settings. Springer, London, pp 1–18, 2008). The process of concept formation begins at a very young age (Vygotsky, The development of scientific concepts in childhood (Minick N, Trans.). In Rieber RW, Carton AS (eds) The collected works of L.S. Vygotsky, vol 1. Plenum Press, New York, pp 167–241, 1987). It is evident that science concept formation in infant-toddler’s life, named as small science, can occur through play and everyday activities (Sikder and Fleer, Research Science Educ 45(3):445–464. doi: 10.1007/s11165-014-9431-0, 2015a). It is established that play motives enhance children’s learning and development in concept formation (Fleer, The development of motives in children’s play. In Hedegaard M, Edwards A, Fleer M (eds) Motives in children’s development cultural-historical approaches. Cambridge University Press, New York, 2012) and the dynamic aspects of relations of motives have a significant influence in children’s learning and development (Hedegaard, The dynamic aspects in children’s learning and development. In Hedegaard M, Edwards A, Fleer M (eds) Motives in children’s development cultural-historical approaches. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 9–27, 2012). However, it is still unknown how the relations of dynamic aspects of motives in play might create the conditions and potential for learning small science concepts in play contexts at the infant-toddler age. Child’s multiple relationships in the play context will be considered as dynamic aspects of motives in play in this chapter. The qualitative case study investigates the dynamic aspects of motives that provide the possibility for scientific concept learning for young children in their everyday cultural life at home. Digital video methodology has been utilized for data collection from the child’s everyday family context. In this chapter, an analysis of 12 h of video data gathered over 4 months from one child’s everyday family life is presented. Hedegaard’s (The dynamic aspects in children’s learning and development. In Hedegaard M, Edwards A, Fleer M (eds) Motives in children’s development cultural-historical approaches. Cambridge University Press, New York, pp 9–27, 2012) planes of analysis were used to analyse the data. The findings indicate that the dynamic aspects of motives have a significant influence on infant-toddler’s play. Successful dynamic play motives as a whole enhance infant-toddlers’ learning of small science concept formation as part of everyday family practice. This research impacts on an under-researched area of infant-toddlers’ science concept learning.