Can guidance during play enhance learning?

This systematic review and meta-analysis compared evidence of guided play to evidence of direct instruction or free play to support children’s learning and development. 39 studies were reviewed of which 17 were included in meta-analysis. Total sample size was 3893 children aged 1-8 years. Compared to direct instruction guided play had a greater positive effect on early maths skills, shape knowledge, and task switching. Compared to free play guided play had greater positive effect on spatial vocabulary. For other key outcomes differences were not found. There was heterogeneity in the conceptualization and implementation of guided play across studies.

Author: K. Skene, C.M. O’Farrelly, E.M. Byrne, N. Kirby, E.C. Stevens, & P.G. Ramchandani

Source: Skene, K., O’Farrelly, C. M., Byrne, E. M., Kirby, N., Stevens, E. C., & Ramchandani, P. G. (2022). Can guidance during play enhance children’s learning and development in educational contexts? A systematic review and meta‐analysis. Child Development, 93(4), 1162-1180. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.13730

  • There has been a debate in early childhood education (ECE) about the benefits of free play and direct instruction for children’s learning and development.
  • Play-based learning acknowledges the combined benefits of play and traditional teaching.
  • Guided play is a form of play-based learning, where degrees of child autonomy and adult guidance are varied.
  • Guided play has been situated between free play and direct instruction.
  • Although it is generally accepted that play supports children’s development and learning, a clear evidence base regarding the benefits of playful learning has been lacking.
  • The term “guided play” has been used in several ways, thus it is important to understand the similarities and differences in the ways that studies use guidance during play.

Guided play and the theoretical basis for effectiveness

  • Guided play has three fundamental characteristics: 1) The adult should have clear learning goal in mind; 2) The activity should allow children some degree of choice and agency over their play; 3) The adult should be flexible in their use of guidance techniques (e.g., by using open-ended questions, hints, prompts, modeling) to ensure sensitivity to the child’s interests and needs.
  • The combination of these features is believed to make guided play a particularly powerful context for learning, compared with free play or didactic learning alone.
  • While the label “guided play” is relatively recent, there is a strong conceptual basis grounded in developmental theory for its potential effectiveness.
  • The interconnection between freedom and guidance, where the adult observes a child’s play with interest to determine when and how to intervene to support their learning, is a central tenet of Froebelian philosophy of education.
  • The value of active learning and adult support is highlighted in developmental theories which underpin many existing ECE practices, such as Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development and scaffolding and Rogoff’s theory of guided participation.
  • Guidance at appropriate times, for example, when a child appears to find an activity too difficult or too easy, can help them learn beyond what might be possible in independent play.
  • Piagetian theory suggests that play fosters learning as it allows information to be gathered in meaningful and intrinsically motivating ways.
  • Similarly, self-determination theory emphasizes that agency, experienced by children as they play, engenders their motivation to engage and learn.

Previous reviews and the present research questions

  • Existing reviews have suggested that lower levels of guidance may increase levels of cognitive demand on children by exceeding the limitations of their working memory capacity. This suggests that there may be optimal levels of guidance for learning to occur.
  • There is a need to consider how, and to what degree, adult guidance is implemented during interventions to better understand its potential effectiveness for learning and development.
  • The existing reviews do not focus on play contexts.
  • Two key research questions were addressed:
  • how effective are guided play interventions for improving children’s learning and developmental outcomes compared to free play and direct instruction
  • how is guided play conceptualized and implemented within experimental studies with respect to adult guidance and child choice?

Methods

  • This review included randomized controlled trials (RCTs) and non-randomized (or quasi-experimental) controlled trials, in which assignment was non-random but where the study otherwise resembles a randomized field experiment.
  • Participants were children with a mean age of 1–8 years.
  • Studies were included if they compared guided play to one or more control groups.
  • Guided play was defined as an approach that involves: (a) child autonomy, (b) adult guidance, and (c) a learning goal.
  • Eligible control conditions were free play or direct instruction/business-as-usual.
  • Free play was defined as play which is initiated and directed by a child with no specified learning goal or adult involvement.
  • Direct instruction was defined as the use of didactic teaching methods to explicitly instruct children of a skill or learning goal.
  • Studies had to include at least one outcome relating to child learning and development, such as cognitive and academic learning, socioemotional development, or physical development.
  • For continuous outcome measures, the Hedges’ g statistic was used to measure the effect size between the post-test scores of the intervention and comparison groups.
  • Independent analyses were conducted for each of the following moderator variables: intensity of intervention exposure (1 to 5, 6 to 20, or >20 exposures), adult involved (parent, teacher, or researcher), number of child participants (<50 or ≥50), type of comparator (free play or direct instruction), and study design (randomized-or quasi-experimental).
  • Narrative synthesis was used to examine textual references within studies to map the similarities and differences across studies in terms of their conceptualization and implementation of guided play.
  • Content analysis was used to investigate the theoretical conceptualization and implementation of the interventions at a deductive level based on two categories: the degree of child choice and flexible adult guidance included.

Results

  • A total of 39 studies were included in the review, of which 17 were suitable for the meta-analysis and 30 for the moderator analyses.
  • Of the studies 22 were RCTs and 17 quasi-experimental studies.
  • 23 compared guided play to direct instruction, nine compared guided play to free play, and seven included both as comparison groups.
  • In total, the studies involved 3893 children, but participant numbers varied considerably across studies, with sample sizes ranging from nine to 1116.
  • Almost all studies (n = 38) were deemed as having a “high” level of risk of bias according The Cochrane Risk of Bias Tool.
  • There is a risk of publication bias across the studies.
  • Meta-analyses identified weak evidence that guided play benefited children’s literacy skills more than direct instruction.
  • Guided play, relative to direct instruction, had a small to medium positive effect on two numeracy outcomes: early maths skills (g = 0.24) and shape knowledge (g = 0.63).
  • There was a large effect size (g=0.93) favoring guided play versus free play for children’s spatial and maths vocabulary.
  • There was a medium effect (g=0.40) for guided play compared with direct instruction for task switching.
  • There was no evidence of differences between guided play and direct instruction for two socioemotional outcomes: prosocial behavior and social competence.
  • Single studies identified guided play to have greater positive effects than free play on vocabulary, maths, and some executive function outcomes.

Narrative synthesis approach

  • Conceptualization of guided play differed between studies: some placed value on playful learning without consideration of adult or child roles, while others placed less value on play but acknowledged adult support and self-directed learning as important factors in children’s learning.
  • There were also between-study variations in the implementation of guided play during the intervention activities, with differences in the amount of autonomy afforded to children and in the amount of adaptive guidance provided by adults.

Conclusions

  • This review provides some evidence that guided play, compared to direct instruction, had a greater positive effect on executive function and maths.
  • There were no differences between guided play and direct instruction for literacy or socioemotional outcomes.
  • Although a single meta-analysis identified a large effect size favoring the benefits of guided play for spatial vocabulary over free play, this result should be interpreted cautiously given the high level of heterogeneity across the studies.
  • Guided play studies with <50 participants had a significantly greater effect on learning outcomes while no difference was seen for studies with 50 or more participants.
  • This review found some evidence that guided play interventions can support maths-based learning in the classroom.
  • Guided play may be suitable for various early learning environments.
  • It may be valuable to provide opportunities for children to learn in ways that are of interest to them personally.