Abstract
The exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials, referred to as object-oriented play (OOP), is one of the most prominent activities children engage in during early childhood. Especially within early childhood education, it is important to be able to assess and understand OOP, its developmental trajectory, and developmental value. This can support early childhood educators to successfully guide or enrich children’s OOP, so it becomes a context in which learning can take place. During the past decades, three dominant theoretical perspectives have explained and assessed certain (developmental) aspects of OOP: (1) genetic epistemology, (2) cultural historical psychology, and (3) evolutionary psychology. After reviewing the literature concerning OOP according to each theoretical perspective, this paper aims to synthesize these existing theories into a unified theoretical framework. This theoretical framework can be a starting point for future research on OOP in early childhood (education). We answer the following research questions: Q1. What are the defining labels and features of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?; Q2. What is the developmental trajectory of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?; Q3. What is the developmental value of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?
Highlights
The exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials, referred to as objectoriented play (OOP), is one of the most prominent activities children engage in during early childhood
What is the developmental trajectory of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?; Q3
What is the developmental value of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials by children in early childhood?
Summary
From what we have discussed it becomes clear that the genetic epistemology perspective emphasizes the role of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials in the construction of knowledge. If the three aforementioned characteristics are absent, the activity would likely be regarded as chaotic (i.e., to many degrees of freedom), forced (i.e., to many rules that has to be followed), or uninteresting to the child (i.e., no high involvement or involuntary participation) If these characteristics are present, the child’s engagement in the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials provides the opportunity for learning to take place, which makes the behavior functional in a child’s development. For this current theoretical framework, the unifying label play as a mode of engagement is employed to link the aforementioned behaviors to learning, not to contribute to the discussion on the conceptualization of play Another aspect that becomes apparent when comparing the different perspectives is that the defining features of the exploration and/or manipulation of objects and materials can be divided into concrete behaviors (e.g., banging an object, relating two object to each other, or substituting an object) and characteristics of this behavior (e.g., repetition, imitation, and association). - Mouthing, - Squeezing, - Banging, - Stroking, - Kneading, - Rotating, - Inspecting objects and materials
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