Understanding the Dialectical RelationsBetween Everyday Concepts and Scientific ConceptsWithin Play-Based Programs

Marilyn Fleer

Published online: 31 May 2008# Springer Science + Business Media B.V. 2008

Abstract In recent times there has been an enormous interest in Vygotsky’s writing onconceptual development, particularly his insights on the differences between everyday andscientific thinking. In drawing upon cultural–historical theory, this paper seeks to examinethe relations between everyday concepts and scientific concepts within playful contexts,such as preschools, with a view to better understanding how very young children developconceptual understandings in science. This paper presents an overview of a study whichsought to map the transformation and appropriation of scientific concepts within two earlychildhood settings. Approximately ten weeks of data gathering took place, with videorecordings, field notes, photographic documentation, and child and teacher interviews forrecording child concept formation within these naturalistic settings. The findings indicatethat when teacher programs are more oriented towards concepts rather than materials,children’s play is focused on conceptual connections. Importantly, the study showed that: Itwas possible to map the multiple and dynamic levels or stratas of thinking that a child orgroup of children may exhibit within play-based contexts; An analysis of ‘unorganisedheaps’ and ‘complexive thinking’ evident in conceptually or materially oriented play-basedprograms can be determined; the dialectical relations between everyday concepts andscientific concepts in play-based programs can be understood; and greater understandingabout the nature of concept formation in situated playful contexts have been possible.

Keywords Early childhood education . Elementary education . Cultural–historical theory .

Sociocultural theory . Play . Preschool science

Introduction

Research into young children’s scientific concept formation has had a long history, withunderstandings about the nature of children’s alternative views dominating how research

Res Sci Educ (2009) 39:281–306DOI 10.1007/s11165-008-9085-x

M. Fleer (*)Faculty of Education, Monash University, Building A, Peninsula Campus, McMahons Rd. Frankston,P.O. Box 527, Frankston VIC 3199, Australiae-mail: marilyn.fleer@education.monash.edu.au

has been framed (Carey 1985; Carey and Spelke 1994; Novak 2005). A large body ofresearch has documented children’s scientific thinking in relation to different scienceconcepts (e.g. Driver et al. 1985), different ages (e.g. Leeds University 1992; Metz 1991;Venville et al. 2003), and different contexts (Harlen 2003). However, much of this researchhas focussed on what an individual thinks at a particular point in time about a particularscience concept. Vygotsky (1987, p. 121) argued that much of what we know about conceptformation has tended to use research methods which focus on the ‘completed process ofconcept formation with the ready-made product of that process’. Vygotsky also argued thatthe dynamics of concept formation, how it develops, how it begins and what it looks like atthe end, are usually not examined. He suggested that when we study the child’s definitionsof a particular concept, we are studying ‘his (sic) knowledge or experience and the level ofhis verbal development more than we are studying his thinking in the true sense of the word(p. 121)’. Studying the dynamic process as opposed to the child’s definitions of a particularconcept (‘end product’), offers a new direction for science education research, and isparticularly pertinent for researchers interested in how very young children pay attention to,and extend their understandings of scientific concepts. This paper presents the findings of astudy which sought to examine how children’s everyday and scientific concepts evolve inplay-based contexts in early childhood education. The first part of this paper discussesVygotsky’s ideas about everyday and scientific concept formation, followed by the studydesign and the findings.

Importantly, Vygotsky (1987) used the term scientific concept to refer to the schooled oracademic concepts taught, as opposed to intuitive tacit concepts embedded in everydaycontexts. In this article, Vygotsky’s (1987) term “scientific concept” takes on this meaning,but with specific reference to the schooled concepts learned through Western scienceeducation.

Theoretical Perspective Guiding the Study

What children pay attention to is determined both by what is in the environment that can beexplored, and what adults or significant others around them, point out. A cultural–historicalview of concept formation, in young children, foregrounds the importance of context, inconjunction with the dynamic and evolving nature of concept formation. This represents amovement away from the traditional epistemological basis of psychology in relation toknowledge claims. Rather than the isolation and examination of specific conceptual unitsthrough confirmation or disconfirmation of evidence, Vygotsky sought to build a dialecticaland dynamic methodology whereby concepts were part of a broader system. For example,in his discussions of the problem and method of investigation where he used the example of‘word’ and ‘verbal thinking’, this dialectical relationship is evident:

It has been said that the dialectical leap is not only a transition from matter that isincapable of sensation to matter that is capable of sensation, but a transition fromsensation to thought. This implies that reality is reflected in consciousness in aqualitatively different way in thinking than it is in immediate sensation. Thisqualitative difference is primarily a function of a generalized reflection of reality.Therefore, generalization in word meaning is an act of thinking in the true sense of theword. At the same time, however, meaning is an inseparable part of the word; itbelongs not only to the domain of thought but to the domain of speech. A wordwithout meaning is not a word, but an empty sound. A word without meaning no

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longer belongs to the domain of speech. One cannot say of word meaning what wesaid earlier of the elements of the word taken separately. Is word meaning speech or isit thought? It is both at one and the same time; it is a unit of verbal thinking.(Vygotsky 1987, p. 47).

As outlined by Minick (1987, pp. 33–34) in the forward to Vygotsky’s collected workson the general problems in psychology, “Vygotsky and his intellectual descendants in theSoviet Union have developed a conceptual framework that overcomes many limitations ofother attempts to represent the relationship between the social and the individual inpsychological development”.

According to Vygotsky (1987), concept formation should be thought about at twodialectically related levels (the everyday and scientific). At the everyday level, concepts arelearned as a result of interacting directly with the world – developing intuitiveunderstandings of how to do things, such as closing doors when it is cold, or openingwindows when it is hot. Children put on jumpers when they feel cold, and will tell you thatthe jumper will keep them warm. These are important everyday concepts. But children maynot know the science behind these actions. They may not know the scientific concept ofinsulation. Vygotsky (1987) argued that these everyday concepts lay the foundations forlearning scientific concepts. Developing everyday concepts in the context of children’severyday world is important for living. However, everyday concepts cannot be easilytransferred to other contexts. For example, knowing that a jumper helps you keep warmmay not be useful if you are learning to surf. How do you keep warm in the water? Butknowing about insulation will help you ask for and understand how a wet suit works.Knowing only about everyday conceptions limits children’s thinking to embedded contextsand reduces their opportunities to apply concepts in new situations.

Vygotsky (1987) also argued that when children simply learn science concepts at schoolaway from the context in which they are used, scientific ideas become disembedded fromeveryday practice. For instance, learning about insulation by putting different materials/fabrics around jars with hot liquid in them, in order to determine which will stay warmer thelongest, can only be useful if it relates to children’s everyday experiences.

Everyday concept formation and scientific concept formation are strongly connected toeach other. That is, the everyday concepts grounded in the day-to-day life experiences ofchildren and adults, create the potential for the development of scientific concepts in thecontext of more formal school experiences. Similarly, scientific concepts prepare thestructural formations necessary for the strengthening of everyday concepts (Vygotsky1987). As children bring together their working everyday knowledge of ‘keeping warm’with their scientific knowledge of ‘insulation’, they transform their everyday practice.Vygotsky argued that these embedded contexts are important pathways toward disem-bedded or scientific thought.

In working its slow way upward, an everyday concept clears a path for the scientificconcept in its downward development. It creates a series of structures necessary for theevolution of a concept’s more primitive, elementary aspect, which give it body and validity.Scientific concepts in turn supply structures for the upward development of the child’sspontaneous concepts toward consciousness and deliberate use (Vygotsky 1966, p. 109).

Hedegaard and Chaiklin (2005) suggest that the most powerful learning contexts arethose where the professional keeps in mind the ‘everyday concepts’ and the ‘scientificconcepts’ when planning for learning. Hedegaard and Chaiklin (2005) have called this the

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‘double move’ in teaching. As early childhood professionals, we create many differenttypes of learning contexts for children – some of these are opportunities for buildingeveryday concepts, and some are contexts which suit the introduction of scientific concepts.What is important here, is the double move on the professional’s part – where everydayconcepts and scientific concepts are interlaced so that a child’s thinking and practice will betransformed. Knowing how everyday concepts and scientific concepts can be interlacedwithin play-based contexts is important for building pedagogical approaches for earlychildhood education. However, psychological research has traditionally not been directedtowards understanding the dynamics of concept formation as it occurs within and acrossmultiple contexts.

Science Education Research in the Early Years

In contrast to cultural–historical research, the long standing science education researchliterature has, in the past, tended to foreground the idea that everyday concepts get in theway when teaching science concepts in schools (see Osborne and Freyberg 1985).Although research directions are steadily changing, much of the research efforts in scienceeducation over the past twenty years have been directed towards amassing data on howchildren aged around 8 years and older, who are from European heritage communities,think about a range of science concepts. For instance, Tsai and Wen (2005, p. 3) analysed802 research papers published in science education journals (1998–2002) and found thatresearch from US, UK, Australia, and Canada were mostly evident, and most papers wereabout students’ conceptions and conceptual change. However, they also noted that therewas a declining trend in relation to this type of research and more ‘research topics related tostudent learning contexts, and social, cultural and gender issues also received relativelymore attention among science educators’ For example, O’Loughlin (1992) argued formoving beyond Piagetian constructivism towards a more sociocultural mode of teachingand learning in science. This is also supported elsewhere (Howe 1996) with manyadvocating the potential of Vygotsky’s important theoretical ideas in relation to teachingand leaning for science education. Howe (1996) particularly noted the relations betweenschool instruction and mental development and made explicit reference to everydayconcepts and scientific concepts, a key concept discussed above. Roth (1997) has alsodrawn attention to everyday science but from a socio-constructivist perspective, with latterwork being more located in cultural–historical paradigm (see Roth et al. 2002). Thesescholars illustrate the active theoretical movement within science education research. Inparticular, a more social and community oriented perspective for framing research hasemerged. As noted by Lemke (2001), sociocultural perspectives for science educationresearch focus upon the nature of communities and how they shape and are shaped by theparticipating individuals. A focus on “context” has also featured in the science educationresearch literature (see Campbell et al. 2000), but the theoretical orientation drawn upon isquite diverse (e.g. Gomez Crespo and Pozo 2004) with only some drawing upon cultural–historical theory to frame their research (e.g. Cowie 2005; Gilbert 2006). Other scienceeducation studies have drawn upon contemporary aspects of cultural–historical theory, suchas scaffolding (see Bouillion and Gomez 2001; Clark and Sampson 2007; Davis and Linn2000; Reigosa and Jimenez-Aleixandre 2007; Rigano et al. 2002), communities of practice(see Eick and Dias 2005; Olitsky 2007; Puntambekar and Kolodner 2005), situatedcognition (e.g. Roth 1998), apprenticeship in thinking (see Barab and Hay 2001; Charney etal. 2007), activity theory (Van Aalsvoort 2004; Roth et al. 2002), task affordance (see

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Cowie et al. 2006) and mediation through conceptual tools (see Robbins 2006). The relatedwork of third space theory (see Bellocchi 2006) has relevance for cultural–historicallyoriented view of science education. Although space does not permit for a full exploration ofthese works and concepts, collectively, these studies show how cultural–historical theoryhas been used for framing science education research, or has been influential through theactive use of particular constructs, such as ‘scaffolding’ in the study designs. What iscommon in these papers, is the broadening of the study design to include the social andcontextual dimensions of the learner.

Daniels (1996) suggests that as researchers we should change our focus from simplystudying concepts in isolation to examining children’s conceptual understandings within anembedded and richly based context. He states:

...instead of viewing particular forms of mental functioning as characterizingindividuals or groups in a general way, these forms can be viewed as beingcharacteristic of specific settings (Daniels 1996 pp. 65–66)

Whilst we know a lot about children’s ideas in science (the ontological base is now large),we know very little about how young children’s scientific thinking moves and changes as aresult of the science topics or the contexts which shape children’s thinking (see Cumming 2003;Ravanis et al. 2004). Research in early childhood science education has shown theimportance of extended and collaborative data gathering for gaining better insights into veryyoung children’s thinking (Fleer 1991a, b; Robbins 2002a). Concerns for buildingcontextualised learning spaces in science education for early childhood children has beennoted when documenting conceptually oriented interactions by preschool and early yearsteachers in relation to living things, electricity, light, change of state of matter, and magnetism(Fleer 1992). Similar findings were also noted by Cumming (2003) in relation to home andfamily contexts for learning about food, by Ravanis and Bagakis (1998) in relation to gaseousstates of matter, and Robbins (2000a, b, 2001a, b) in her research into 5-year-old children’sunderstanding of natural phenomena. These researchers noted that when the researchmethodology was framed within a sociocultural rather than a constructivist paradigm, richerand more contextualised understandings of children’s thinking emerged. A socioculturalorientation to researching young children’s scientific thinking has also been demonstrated incross-cultural contexts and through a variety of data gathering approaches, including musicand art activities, food, farming and land management (Dillon et al. 2005; Fleer 1991a; Fleerand Robbins 2003; Hannust and Kikas 2007). Traditional constructivist inspired approachesto interviewing young Indigenous Australian children has produced data which onlydocuments Indigenous children’s capacity to engage in question and answer techniques andaspects of Western science understandings, and gives very little insight into young Indigenouschildren’s scientific understandings (e.g. Kasandra et al. 2005; Kesamang and Taiwo 2002;Gilbert and Yerrick 2001; Fleer 1997).

However, through a sociocultural or cultural–historical research, researchers havedocumented complex and contextually based understandings of young children’s thinkingabout everyday occurrences across age groups and concepts (see Eshach 2006; Gelman andBrenneman 2004; Gitari 2006; Fleer and Beasley 1991; Roth et al. 2002).

Discourse analysis within some socioculturally inspired research designs with olderchildren and adults has been shown to provide more contextually rich data when looking atthinking in science (Brown 2006; Hanrahan 2006; Kittloeson and Southland 2004;Shepardson and Britsch 2006; Van Zee et al. 2001; Wickman and Ostman 2002). Segal andCosgrove (1993) have noted the importance of conversations and context when researching

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very young children’s scientific understandings of light and shadow. They described thelearning of a small group (n=28) of 5-year-old children around light and shadows followingwhat they termed a ‘conversational approach’. They noted: ‘We also inquire into their socialconstruction of knowledge as we attempt to follow changes in conceptual understandingwhich may occur during our lessons and how our three part learning model comprised ofcooperative groups, informal inquiry and familiar context assists in this process’ (Segal andCosgrove, Emphasis in original, p. 277). Their research highlighted the complexity andfluidity of children’s thinking. Further work presented by Fleer and Segal (1996) showedthe playfulness of children’s scientific thinking as children discussed their understandingsof sunlight and whether a sea sponge was an animal or a plant – noting the intuitiveinconsistency evident when an animal is anchored to the sea floor and unable to breathe!Southerland et al. (2005) have also noted through their analysis of third graders’understanding of condensation the dialectical relations between the group meaning-makingand individual constructions through their mircroanalysis of classroom conversations.These everyday contexts and areas of interest contrast strongly with traditionaldecontextualised framing, evident when documenting children’s understandings of livingand non-living, plant and animal, and notions of light, as gained through interviews aboutincidents (Osborne and Freyberg 1985).

Martins and Veiga (2001, p. 69) have also highlighted the importance of context inunderstanding concept formation:

...scientific knowledge is frequently viewed as independent of the context, because itis supposed to be valid for any situation. However, an increasing number of authorsargue that science teaching must be organised around situations close to real scientificknowledge...

They argued that decontextualising science from the site of its use, disembeds scientificknowledge, resulting in disengagement of the learner.

To combat this position requires adopting contextualised teaching from the beginning,in which the importance of daily life is a fundamental aspect. In this way teachingshould, on the one hand, concentrate on relevant personal and social themes and, onthe other hand, be flexible enough to adapt when conditions change...(Martins andVeiga 2001, p. 72).

Martins and Veiga (2001, p. 72).) also suggest that from a very ‘early age childrenshould be involved in practical activities with clear aims. In effect, children can developfrom merely manipulative and sensorial knowledge to the establishment of causal relationsand even to an interpretation of those relations through explanatory models...’ Researchingyoung children’s thinking in context, has also been noted indirectly by Jordan (1992) as aresult of working with mothers in play centres in New Zealand. Jordan’s (1992) actionresearch project in science demonstrated that improvements in the science programs offeredto the early childhood children and the level of staff-child interactions was possible whenstaff were encouraged to examine the everyday contexts in which science took place.

Research into children’s thinking in the home and in childcare during periods ofscientific activity for children in their childcare centre revealed that although youngchildren engaged in the experiences, they did not ask scientific questions when in the centre(Fleer 1996). However, interviews with family members indicated that the children asked arange of interesting scientific questions when at home – always in an everyday context.This research supports Vygotsky’s premise of conceptual development working its slow

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way upward, an everyday concept clears a path for the scientific concept in its downwarddevelopment (Vygotsky 1966, p. 109). Research by Martins and Veiga (2001) into the useof everyday contexts for science such as floating and sinking with potatoes and apples,provided new directions for researchers working with very young children.

Tytler (1998) and Tytler and Peterson (2000) have also noted the meandering ofchildren’s thinking as they engage in scientific conversations in early years’ classrooms.Although their work does not attribute the meandering to the science context, they doindirectly suggest an evident playfulness in thinking for very young children. Ofsignificance in their research was their finding that children’s ideas were fluid and tookmany different pathways during extended interview conversation periods. Their surprise atthe differences in young children’s thinking when compared with older children and thedifferent research contexts that evolved or were needed for young children to present theirthinking has been noted in their work.

Either through surprise (e.g. Tytler and Peterson 2000) or through design (e.g. Robbins2001a), researchers have noted that research contexts must be linked to the everyday – asmeaningful contexts in which science conversations, thinking and explorations can emerge.

The early childhood studies reviewed above, strongly suggest a need for considering theimportance of contexts for science; contexts that are embedded in the child’s world thatinclude the provision of time and space in order to capture the meandering of youngchildren’s scientific thinking. Rather than focusing research attention on cognitive processesand conceptual structures only, research should concentrate on ‘what kinds of socialengagements provide the proper context for learning to take place’ (Hanks 1991, cited inLave and Wenger 1991, p. 14) and what are the social contexts which permit authenticunderstandings of young children’s thinking in science to emerge? As such, research in theearly years should move to the development of a situated (or contextualised) scientificresearch methodology (as described by Martins and Beiga 2001). Without an appropriateresearch context – featuring embeddedness – our capacity to understand young children’sconceptual thinking will remain limited. We will never realise Vygotsky’s (1987) mosteducationally potent notion of “everyday” and “scientific” thought.

The research design of this project was created to provide ways to reveal and reflectupon everyday and scientific concept formation within different societal conditions.

Study Design

Play is the dominant pedagogical approach to supporting learning found in most preschoolcontexts within many Western communities (OECD 2006; Starting Strong 2). It mirrorswhat occurs in many families from European heritage communities. Understanding howconcept formation occurs within these naturalistic play contexts is important for betterunderstanding how science learning can be supported in early childhood education.Because play is a leading activity for preschool aged children (see Vygotsky 1966) a‘definite (psychological) need’ is generated within ‘which it is the function of the conceptto satisfy’ (Sakharov 1994, p. 83).

However, studying concept formation during the process of its development is mostchallenging, as noted by Vygotsky and Luria (1994, p. 114), who suggest that in their researchin this area ‘we were not studying one and same activity each time in its new concreteexpressions, but that, over a series of experiments, the object of research itself changed’Sakharov (1994, p. 82–83) suggests that studying the “process of formation of new conceptsis important”. He argued that ‘a concept must be studied in its functional context’.

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Play-based contexts are an important research site because they afford concept formationopportunities, and as illustrated by Vygotsky (1987), offer a functional, dynamic andmotivational study context which should provide a working example of concept formation.

Research Question This study sought to examine the reciprocity between everydaythinking and scientific thinking (or schooled academic concepts) during playfulencounters in early childhood centres with a view to better understanding how conceptformation for 4 and 5-year-old children is supported during play. Although conceptformation can relate to many cognitive areas, in this study the focus of attention is onWestern science concepts.

Sample

Forty-eight children and their families from two preschools and their teachers participatedin this study. The centres came from two distinct regions of south-eastern Australia. Onecentre was urban and one was located in a rural community.

Rural Centre

A group of 24 preschool children (14 boys and 10 girls) aged between 4 and 5 yearsparticipated in the study (age range from 4 years 4 months to 5 years 5 months; Mean ageof 4 years 11 months). All the children were from European heritage families. The childrenlived in a rural community where fishing and market gardening were the main source ofemployment. The children attended the preschool for 4 days per week, where an extendedday program was offered (Monday: 9–1:00; Tuesday and Wednesday 9–2:00; Friday: 9–12:00). The centre had one qualified teacher (4 year university degree) and an assistant whohad no formal teaching qualifications, but held a fine arts degree. She had worked in thecentre for approximately 18 years.

Although all the children participated in the study, five focus children were selected forcloser data gathering. Two boys and three girls with a mean age of 5 years and 2 monthswere identified by the teacher. Selection was based on teacher judgement in relation to thechildren’s willingness and acceptance of being video taped and interviewed. The averageage of the focus children was slightly higher than the mean for the overall group.

Urban Centre

The preschool centre was set within a bushlands setting, in close proximity of a city centre.Families were predominantly of European heritage. The 25 children (Age range of thechildren was 5.2 years to 4.0 years; Mean age of 4 years, 5 months) who were participantsin this study, attended the centre, four half days per week. Fifteen boys and 9 girls with amedian age of 4 years and 7 months were identified by the teacher as children who wouldhappily participate in the project. A qualified teacher (recently graduated from an honoursprogram) with 3 years of experience and an assistant with 10 years of experience ran theprogram in the centre.

The staff from both centres were briefed on the aims of the research and were introducedto cultural–historical theory by the chief investigator. The focus of attention for the playprogram in the rural centre was materials and their properties; and in the urban centre itwas the structure and function of living things.

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Data Gathering Approach

Video recordings All the children were video taped over four school weeks during theirfree-play time (for the rural centre a total of 15 days; urban centre it was 17 days). Theresearch assistant followed the children in and out of the centre video-taping them as theyengaged in non-directed play. All group times and routines, such as snack time and lunch,were video-taped by a research assistant. Due to the naturalistic context, not all the childrencould be video-taped because the focus children were not always in close proximity to eachother or were not always engaged in the same play activity. The research assistant followedthe focus children and recorded their play activities with one camera, but was unable torecord simultaneous play activities. For the rural centre, a total of ten preschool sessionswere video recorded. A total of 60 pages of field notes, 220 centre based photos and8 hours of video data of the play activities of the children were recorded. For the urbancentre, a total of 17 days of field notes, 15 days (11 hours) of video data of play, and 300photographs were generated of the play in the centre.

Family interviews The focus children and their families were given disposable cameras andasked to take photographs of everyday experiences that the children engaged in at homeand in the community which they thought related in some way to science (A total of 65family-based photographs for the rural centre, for the urban 65 photographs). One memberof each family was interviewed about the photographs either at their home on in a quietroom in the early childhood centre (as selected by the interviewee). Each parent was askedto comment on the nature of the photographs, why they took the photographs, and if theysaw any links between the home and centre contexts in relation to science. These interviewswere video-taped and transcribed. Most interviews lasted 20 minutes.

Staff interviews The staff in the centres were interviewed an average of five times (each sessionlasting up to 2 h) about the centre program. They were specifically asked to comment upon thescience they were introducing to the children in the centre through play. The staff were alsoasked to view the family photographs and to comment on any connections between the homeand the centre they knew about, planned for, or could see in the photographs. The teachers werealso shown video stills of the children at play in the centre and were asked to comment on whatwas happening in relation to planning for children’s scientific learning. These images related tothe planned play experiences introduced by either staff member.

Organisation of the video-data All the video-tapes were categorised into play segments.Play segment where the theme of the play appeared to begin was noted and where it endedwas also noted. Endings tended to be where the play theme changed (e.g. water play, babyplay). Play themes were noted as occurring across space (e.g. different parts of the centre)and time (e.g. on subsequent days).

Analysis

Vygotsky’s (1987) categories of concept formation provided a beginning point forexamining concept formation in the play-based contexts. As suggested by Vygotsky (1987):

We must establish what impels the formation of concepts toward the centre of themental transformation that constitutes the crises of this period (p. 130).

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Vygotsky (1987) wrote about three levels of thinking. These three levels were dividedinto different categories of thinking. The levels should be viewed like sedimentarylayers. He argued that they co-exist, just as strata representing different geologicalepochs coexist in the earth’s crust (Vygotsky 1987, p. 160). Vygotsky (1987, Originalemphasis, p. 162) suggested that conceptual thinking could be understood as ‘a complexprocess involving the movement of thinking through the pyramid of concepts, a processinvolving constant movement from the general to the particular and from the particularto the general’.

The first level of thinking identified by Vygotsky (1987) was “unorganised heaps”. Whatcharacterized concept formation in this level was the more subjective and unconnected way inwhich children would think. For instance, random probes were often emotionally driven –thatis experientially driven. They were not necessarily connected, but rather could be seen asseparate acts.

Vygotsky also argued that children focus on the spatial dimensions of objects and areinfluenced visually or temporally in their categorization of them.

A further characteristic of unorganized heaps in concept formation is children’s unitingof groups of things based on one single criterion. Rather than seeing complex connections,they simplify and reduce meaning when categorizing objects during concept formation.

The formation of complexes takes place when children begin to make complexconnections, and think in a more objective way. Rather than an emotional connection beingforegrounded, children look for evidence of connections. The types of connections made bychildren become complicated over time. For instance, children associate two objects inrelation to a key characteristic. Some connections are functionally oriented – that is, thingsare grouped together because they support each other in some way (symbiotic relation-ships). Other associations occur in the way a domino game works – children connect ideasin relation to what stands out the most at that point in time, and then as they encounter newexperiences or objects, they make new connections. Diffuse complexive thinking, however,occurs when children begin to link concepts in relation to knowledge outside their practicalexperience.

Pseudoconcepts are evident when children appear to know and use concepts in theireveryday practice. However, Vygotsky (1987) argued that children may apply theories inpractice, but they have no conscious understanding of the conceptual connectionsunderlying their actions. For instance a child wears a wet suit when surfing, because thisis the ‘standard uniform’ of surfers in cold conditions but has no knowledge of how thewet suit is insulating their bodies. There is no conscious conceptual understanding ofinsulation.

We have said that the higher forms of complexive thinking, especially thepseudoconcept, are maintained in our everyday thinking and its foundations inordinary speech. Indeed, the rudiments of the forms of thinking which we will nowdescribe, significantly predate the formation of pseudoconcepts. (Vygotsky 1987, p.156).

Moving from complexive thinking to conceptual understanding can be better understoodif we consider the importance Vygotsky placed on the nature and interlacing of everydayconcept formation and scientific concept formation. Everyday concept formation, and thedifferent manifestations of this thinking, as shown in the layers in Table 1, as an importantfoundation. Unlike earlier work in science education, Vygotsky’s theory does not focus onchildren’s ‘mini theories’ (Claxton 1990), alternative views (Driver 1983; Driver et al.

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1985; Harlen 2003; Osborne and Freyberg 1985;) or argumentation (Newton et al. 2004).Rather, Vygotsky’s (1987) theory of concept formation concentrates upon the dynamicinteraction between everyday concepts and scientific concepts, foregrounding theimportance of situated everyday thinking.

Vygtosky’s methodological approach for developing the strata described in Table 1 wasdeveloped with his colleague Sakharov (1994) [adapting a sorting test developed by Ach(1921), and was known as the ‘double stimulation’ or as the block activity in the West (seeChapter 5 of Vygotsky 1987 for a full description of the method)]. Although critiques of themethod have been made in relation to the disembedded experimental nature of the activitythat the children engaged in (see Daniels 2001; Kozulin 1990), the categorisations thatresulted (Table 1), does provide a beginning point (only) for analysing concept formationwithin a naturalistic setting (Vygotsky 1994).

Findings

Concept Formation in Open-ended Play Contexts – Focus of Attention is on ProvidingMaterials, Time and Space

An analysis of the science play data gathered from the rural preschool, demonstrated thatchildren’s scientific investigations during play were generally focussed on the physicalattributes of the materials available. The children played with: funnels, coloured water,spoons, mortar and pestle (and fragrant leaves), buckets, bottles, hoses, pipes, hand pumpson bottles, oil, and vinegar (in the sandpit only). A summary of the play episodes, thatresulted from the ‘potions’ play introduced by the teacher, is shown in Table 2. The playthat dominated in the centre, related to the physical dimensions of the equipment, such asmoving coloured water from one container to another, or grinding leaves to make perfume.The buckets, pumps, funnels, tubes and mortar and pestle were the objects that sustainedthe children’s engagement in the play. One example of these play episodes is discussedbelow.

Table 1 Concepts in action

Concepts Descriptions

Unorganised heaps (subjective –unconnected connectedness)

Syncretic image – random separate probes (subjective emotionalconnections)

Spatial distribution – (visual–spatial or temporal encounter)Already united groups in the child’s perception are reduced to asingle meaning

Formation of complexes (connectedand objective)

Associative complex – concrete relationship between nucleus andobject

Complex collections (e.g. cup and saucer) – functionally associatedChained complex – no structural centre in the chained complexDiffuse complex – units based on things outside child’s practicalknowledge

Pseudoconcepts Externally see the conceptual connection. Internally, it is still acomplex. Apply concept in practice, but no conscious awarenessof concept.

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Observation 23.8: Siphoning (Unorganised Heaps)

Three children are in the sandpit. Two children hold one end of a plastic tube. One endis positioned lower and is attached to a bottle which is held in the sand. The otherchild is holding the other end of the tube which has a cup funnel attached to it.Rodney is packing the sand around the bottle. Yarrow is watching. He then looks atthe cup and turns and puts coloured water in it. Rodney stands up and walks over toYarrow who is holding the cup with coloured water.

Rodney: “Put it in that one ‘cause there’s lots of potions”

(Yarrow turns and puts more water into cup and looks in cup. Rodney goes and getsanother white plastic bottle and takes the plastic tube out of the bottle and puts it intothe new bottle. Yarrow turns and puts more water into the cup. Rodney takes the otherbottle out of the sand and puts the new bottle in it’s place and packs the sand aroundthe bottle, Yarrow watches and then looks inside his cup. Rodney then gets the bottlethat was filled first and tips it into the spare bottle which is in the sand next to thebottle being filled by plastic tube).

The two children involved in this play were focussed on pouring liquid into the tubes.Their attention was directed to coordinating the pouring action (at one end) and the releaseof liquid from the other end of the tube. This type of play continued in other areas of thecentre’s outdoor environment. A mother helper and a small group of children moved thesiphoning equipment to many different parts of the outdoor area, including the fort andclimbing equipment in order to siphon from higher and higher points in the environment.The assistant teacher also provided additional play equipment for the children, includingsiphoning equipment to extend children’s play.

The children’s interactions with the materials and each other during free play, tended tobe random and unconnected. The children appeared to be experiencing the materialsphysically rather than conceptually. The teachers supported the children’s randominvestigations – even when the directions taken were different from those planned by thestaff. Much of the play evident in the centre (see Table 1) could be categorised in this way.

Table 2 Concepts in action: potions

Concepts Descriptions

Unorganisedheaps

Syncretic image – random separate probes Potions and perfumeSpatial distribution SiphoningAlready united groups in the child’s perception are reducedto a single meaning

Filling potion containers(buckets and pumps)

Complexivethinking

Associative complex Not evidentComplex collections Potions and medicine

Potions and poison andfunneling to kill plants

Mixing and cookingChained complex Not evidentDiffuse complex Not evidentPseudoconcepts Not evident

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However, some of the children did re-frame the funnelling activity into an imaginarysituation, where the focus of attention was on funnelling coloured water via a long hose to aseries of branches that had been stuck into the sand, resembling cuttings. This type of play,although using the same resources, involved complexive thinking (see below).

Observation 23.8: Funnelling to Kill Plants (Complexive Thinking)

Max is holding a bottle. He is standing in the outdoor area of the preschool.

Max: “Kill all the plants. No they’re our plants” (Points to leaves that a child has justpicked up). “They’re the ones that are gonna get killed” (points to plant on ground,other child picks up bucket with plants in hand and moves to where another bucket isand tips something in it).

This child has brought to the planned activity of mixing coloured water, his ownexperience of poisoning plants. His focus is on the materials but in relation to poisoning theplants. A further example of this type of play on a subsequent day by a different childfollows.

Observation 26.8: Potion Poison (Complexive Thinking)

A group of children are assembled outside under a fort, where they are filling upplastic bottles with coloured water from a bucket.

Research Assistant: What potion is this?

Child: It’s poison

Research Assistant: The potion is poison?

Child: Puts funnel down by feet and starts spraying at the bottom of the tree. Picks upfunnel and moves around to potted plants in a tray. The child systematically pumpsliquid into each plant that is in the tray.

Research Assistant: The potion is poison. How does it work?

Child: Puts down funnel and starts spraying plants in pots in a systematic way.

This child has made sense of the coloured water and containers by constructing thepotion as poison. This was also evident in the previous observation (funnelling to killplants). The child had focused primarily on the act of killing plants (a common experiencefor children living on local vegetable farms). The imaginary situation allowed the childrento make sense of the materials provided by the teachers in ways that related to their ownexperiences of growing up in a market garden area. The relations between materials wereexplored, but not in ways which generated theoretical knowledge of materials, and theirproperties.

These play episodes provide evidence for the importance of introducing to childrenmaterials which are meaningful to children. When the conceptual intentions on the part ofthe adults were not clear to children, or when the core concepts being considered by theteacher, were not well understood, then the play events were re-framed by the children in

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ways that suited their interests and connected in meaningful ways to their experiences (e.g.through narratives or imaginary situations).

In line with the deliberate expansion of everyday experiences (e.g. giving more materials tothe children) in the centre, was a concentration on the children’s random probing and aconcentration in the complex connections made between the materials and life events (e.g.poisoning plants). As such, two types of thinking processes were being privileged in thisparticular centre – unorganized heaps and complex collective (see Table 1). The children’s focusof attention was at the everyday concept level – what does the equipment do, rather than at ascientific concept level in relation to ‘materials and their properties’. The teachers believed thatbecause the children were using the equipment in their play, they were learning about materialsand their properties. However, an overall analysis of the data (Table 2) indicated that conceptformation tended to be related to children’s everyday concepts and not their scientific concepts.The children’s learning about materials and their properties remained at a tacit everyday level.Although this is important in terms of the dialectical relations between everyday concepts andscientific concepts, without focused teacher–child interactions at the scientific level, onlyeveryday concepts could develop for the children. Therefore it can be argued that materiallyrich play-based environments without teacher input in relation to scientific concepts as childrenplay with the resources, promotes everyday conceptual development.

This finding is particularly important for teachers who seek to continually ‘addequipment’ to the children’s environment for exploration and do not plan for the specificintroduction of scientific concepts as children play (e.g. through books, focusedinvestigations or through carefully crafted adult-child interactions). In this particular ruralcentre, the teacher stated that she believed children should learn ‘in a round about way’(teacher interview) and she wanted the materials to ‘suggest learning’ (Teacher interview)rather than have the staff direct the children’s attention. The teacher’s philosophy aboutlearning science through the materials is consistent with traditional beliefs in earlychildhood education which foregrounds play equipment, and de-emphasises the role of theteacher. This perspective is common in early childhood education in Australia, and followsfrom the theoretical interpretations of Piaget’s theory of learning. However, these beliefsand practices are not consistent with international research. For instance, Lobman (2006)noted in her extensive review of the literature that teachers who make a difference in play-based environments ‘elaborate and enhance children’s learning by adding to the activity athand, and ...help take it to a new level’ (p. 455). Siraj-Blatchford (2004) in examining over141 randomly selected centres, and closely examining cognitively successful play-basedprograms as determined through longitudinal research (see Sammons et al. 2002) in the UKalso noted that sustained teacher-child interactions was the common characteristic found.Further evidence for an active teaching role has been noted by Gelman and Brenneman(2004) in their Preschool Pathways to Science and by French’s (2004, p.140, pp. 141–142)ScienceStart programs where ‘adult support can help children receive maximum benefitfrom their activities’ and where ‘Teachers’ language may structure investigations and mayextend the children’s understanding of these investigations. Adult language providesvocabulary to describe the concepts emerging from the investigations and provides modelsfor discourse functions such as describing and explaining’. The findings of the presentstudy show how teacher beliefs about materially rich environment as the main site forlearning, promotes learning, but mostly at an everyday conceptual level and not at ascientific conceptual level. The absence of the teacher as the mediator for higher levels ofthinking were pronounced in the data, and the type of play generated, although important,was mostly repetitive, random and not conceptually connected to concepts that the teacherbelieved she was promoting.

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Concept Formation in Conceptually Oriented Play Contexts – Focus of Attentionis on Scientific Knowledge

In the urban centre, the program that was planned and implemented by the teacher,concentrated more on concept formation as shown in Table 3. The teacher had capitalisedon one child’s interest in living organisms to develop a program on ‘bugs’. Four examplesof play episodes from the program are presented, to illustrate the dominant type of playevident, and the particular thinking that it generated – complexive thinking. In particular,one of the five focus children is discussed in this paper to illustrate the type of playgenerated and utilized by the teacher for supporting all the children’s science learning.

In this first example the child (Ch) engages in a treasure hunt, utilizing his interest inliving things to play with the treasure map and his centre environment.

14.2.06 Map and Treasure Hunt

Ch. adapts a treasure hunt activity from the day before and takes the map he’s madeand marked with an X inviting teacher J to follow him outside to hunt for bugs (fieldnotes).

J. Should we go and find the path?

Ch. Yes...

Ch. has spent time each day looking carefully around the yard with binoculars andmagnifiers but today he is the trying to use the abstracted view of the yard that his maprepresents to locate bug treasure at point X. This is a new experience and challenge andhe seeks support from his teacher to embark on this venture (field notes).

Ch. ...(can we find it)...without the map

Ga. I gave something to Ch. (Ga hands Ch something to encourage his treasure huntsearch in the environment)

Table 3 Concepts in action: bugs

Concepts Descriptions

Unorganisedheaps

Syncretic image – random separateprobes

Not evident

Spatial distribution Not evidenceAlready united groups in the child’sperception are reduced to a singlemeaning

Bug and fish swimming in water.

Complexivethinking

Associative complex Cockroach is a baby because it is small.Map for bugs – treasure hunt.

Complex collections Bull ant sucking machine.Bull ant going to the dentist.

Chained complex Collectively evident when each ‘event’ isconsidered around the mechanics of ‘eating/biting/digesting’.

Diffuse complex Bacteria and digestionPseudoconcepts Naming of organisms in book.

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All four children follow Ch and the teacher

These children explore the environmental context in order to better understand the natureand place of small creatures living in it. Using a map as a powerful conceptual tool, the childrenplayed with the idea of finding and documenting the creatures in their shared environment.

Field notes Observations TranscriptsThe children use a range ofconceptual tools to supportinvestigations, such asmagnifying glasses, binoculars, acamera, containers with lids, abug catcher with a magnifying lid,an overhead projector, localenvironment photographs in abook, micro-life book, insectidentity charts, a poster ofbushland creatures, pens, chalks(six legged creature), paintbrushes and dye, collage materialsand pencils, play-dough (butterflyand eggs) and animal figures(especially dinosaurs, crocodiles).

Observation 21.2 JP: What do slaters eat?Ch fascination with ecosystemsextends and associations occur. Heregularly lifts logs, collecting theslaters and millipedes under themand putting them in his bug catcher.In this encounter with assistantteacher (JP) he seems to understandthat bugs digest differently fromhumans. When research assistantshowed this conversation to hismother she believed that Ch’sfather had read him a book aboutthis at home (field notes).

Ch: Wood, leaves, everythingJP: If I ate wood, I’d get a tummyache. Why doesn’t the slater getone?Ch: It has germs in its tummy andthey kick the tummy ache away.We don’t have germs in ourtummy.

Observation 27.2 Ch: Naughty boy (referring to bugnot eating)

Ch often carries a bug catcher withhim and on this day he is observedtalking to the bug as if it is aperson. He seems concerned aboutthe bug not eating the grass he hasput in to sustain it (field notes).

A: What have you put in there tohelp him?

Ch: Grass and he’s not going to eat itA: He doesn’t seem to like grassCh. He does eat grass.A: Does he?...Ch: He’s supposed to eat it.A: What else does he possibly eat?Ch: Grass, trees... leaves but not treesA: I suppose the things that arearound him.

Ch: Grass, leaves,.. branch, treesleaves, grass, leaves, trees, grass,trees, leaves....(he repeats thesenames over and over)

In these two related observations, the interactions are around expressing what this particularchild knows about the digestion of insects and considering the close relationship betweencreatures and their environment in terms of what they eat. The teacher has asked questionswhich promote these conversations and focus this child and other children’s attention further onwhat the creatures eat. What is evident is that some of the children have associated the conceptof ‘eating’ in terms of the mechanics of this process to the creature’s environment. Some of thechildren make an association between the concepts of eating with that of digestion, and onceagain associated this within the context of the environment. In this example, it is evidence thatCh appears to be developing quite a sophisticated knowledge system of organisms, themselves,and the environment. Other children pay attention to these ideas being explored.

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In the urban centre, the children were encouraged by staff to represent theirinvestigations of their environment through painting and drawing. An example of thechild who was stimulating the centre’s investigations is shown below.

Observations Transcript Field notes27.2 Bug machine The day before he had found a large

bull ant near the sand pit and calledfor his teacher to come and get it.She had carefully removed it(using a glass and cardboard) to theadjacent bushland whilst hewatched and told her about howbull ants have jaws and teeth to bite

Ch is at a table with food dye andbrushes when he spontaneouslypaints and explains about amachine he has represented onpaper that can suck up bull-ants

The machine he painted representeda functional solution to managingstray bull ants that might bite andoffered thought as to what mighthappen should they get sick (fieldnotes)

Ch: It goes up there and it getsthe ants and this is when theygo to the dentist

JH: Go to the dentist?Ch: Yeah that’s when they getsick and then they go here

21.2 Pacman person chomping JP: Oh wow....what fun....(sheplays with the pacman personopening its mouth)

Later in the day when Ch’s peer Costamps on a beetle, he cries outloud in anguish. Ch. has stronglyexpressed concerns aboutpreservation of life. JP empathisesand begins a new search with agroup of children to find a newbeetle/bug in the yard (field notes)

Ch continues to re-present his earlieridea about digestion and has chosenthe collage table to create animaginary bug like pac-man from around piece of paper. He wants thecharacter to function with a mouththat opens so it can ‘burp, eat, biteand chomp’. With encouragementfrom assistant JP, he cuts a designthat allows the character to do this.JP role plays with Ch’s creation andhe jumps with excitement when it isanimated in front of his peer Co.Ch. often converses with thecreatures he finds and is delightedwhen JP brings this imaginarycreature ‘to life’ with comic voices

Co: Excuse me....JP: He got a circle right and hegot two dots for eyes and he cutcut cut for the mouth....look Ch

Ch’s probing in relation to the function of ‘eating’ is extended further, when an examinationof the nature of the interface between the structure of the creatures (themechanics of eating) andthe environment in which the creature is located is made. In particular we note that Ch’s sense ofenvironment and human care comes together to ensure that the creatures are safe. He activelyseeks to ensure that the bull ants are moved for his own and other’s safety too.

The active exploration for small creatures bymany of the children was partneredwith teacher-child interactions where scientific concepts were introduced, as is shown in the next example:

27.2 Naming Bugs

Teacher (JH) has charts and insect identity sheets as resources for children in the centre whowant to name the bugs they find. Ch has found a ‘bug’ and believes it to be a centipede. He

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brings it indoors for clarification of identification. Ch looks closely at the chart and pointsto and names, the Centipede, Mosquito, Praying Mantis and Lacewing (field notes).

Ch: I think that’s a centipede

JH: I think that’s a centipede. Yep. I’ll read the word centipede yep that one’s a centipede.That one’s a millipede. They’re the ones we find around the kinder all the time.

Co: We found one. Sticks on. I think it will go through those holes

Ch: Mosquito

JH: That one’s called a scorpion fly

Ch: Praying mantis

JH: Special names

Co: Praying mantis

JH: Yep

Ch: Lacewing

The naming of small creatures represents a bringing together of aspects of children’sscientific knowledge (as Ch shares his understandings) and observational knowledge of thecreatures the children have actively sought, uncovered, cared for and played with, in theirenvironment. However, when viewing this event within the context of all the other probesof the environment, it becomes evident that the children are developing pseudoconceptsabout small creatures – an important dimension of conceptual development.

An overall analysis of the scientific activities that the children were engaged in duringtheir play within the urban preschool showed a diversity of activity. However, the activitywas purposefully framed in relation to the structure and function of organisms. Each of the‘activities’ was clearly linked to a metaplan of investigation of small creatures in thisenvironment (i.e. bugs). Table 3 provided an overview of the ‘play activity’ in relation todifferent relations between the environment and the organisms, and shows collectively thatthe play activity of the children was contributing to scientific concept formation.

Each of the play episodes can be analysed as separate probes and a particular type ofconceptual thinking can be identified. For example, it is clear that many of the children’sprobes of their environment are not random, but rather quite purposeful (see complexivethinking). They use the environment in a spatial way to better understand the place of smallcreatures within the preschool outdoor area. Spatial thinking is clearly evident. Themapping of the creatures in their environment and their engagement in the treasure huntboth demonstrate that this is an important element of their concept development.

Similarly, the investigations of the form and structure of small creatures in terms of themechanics of eating within the context of their environment, ensures that the probes wereoriented to “what is”, rather than a “fantasy dimension”. Fantasy does become important inthis centre, when the children link what they know about the bull ant’s bite within theirworking knowledge of visiting the dentist. Here we note complexive thinking, particularlyin relation to the associations of ‘teeth-bite’ with ‘dentist’, as is characteristic of Vygotsky’sideas in relation to complex collections (see Table 1). However, there is an overwhelmingsense of complexive thinking in relation to chained complexes – the chain that buildsfocuses around the children’s fascination with the mechanics of eating. At times, the eatingand what moves from this appears to be chained, with no structural centres (see chained

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complex). For instance, the thinking moves from the ‘bite’, to the ‘teeth’, to the ‘eating’ tothe ‘digestion’, to the ‘environment in terms of what they eat’. There is a clear complexchain emerging. But what also emerges is how these probes, build a core concept of thesmall creatures within the context of their environment.

An analysis of children’s concept formation is important for gaining insights into howconcepts develop within playful learning contexts, such as preschools. In particular, we noticethrough an analysis of the children’s probing, that the learning environment supported thedevelopment of complexive thinking. The learning context, which included the program plannedand implemented by the teacher, allowed for the interlacing of everyday concepts that the childwas exploring with scientific concepts gained at home and in the centre. For example, the teacherencouraged the representation of the environment the children were exploring through creatingmaps, providing tools for orienteering and exploration (e.g. binoculars, treasure maps), readingof scientific books and charts (introduced by the research assistant), and conceptually orientedinteractions with adults which ensured that the bull ants were moved to an appropriate context.

Concurrently, the space and time devoted to play and exploration, meant that the childrencould also make chained links between the probes they initiated, and those the staff introducedto support the development of concepts. The children were given space and time to expresstheir thinking, for example, creating a munching pacman, designing and painting a bull antsucking machine that included how bull ants travel to the dentist and doctor and drawing a mapto locate bugs in the playground. These representations of complexive thinking illustrate bothassociative complex thinking and also chained complex thinking (see Table 1).

Diffuse thinking was also noted in the everyday contexts of exploring what the creatureseat, as children drew upon knowledge gained from their home context (bacteria aidingdigestion). What is significant here, is that the playful contexts supported the interlacing ofeveryday concept formation and scientific concept formation. There was a dialecticalrelationship that generated different types of complexive thinking around the playful eventsinitiated by the children and introduced by the teacher.

The importance of everyday thinking for laying a foundation for scientific thinking(rather than viewing it as getting in the way) was particularly evident in this data set. Thechildren drew upon many everyday concepts, such as visiting the dentist, and used theseeveryday understandings for interlacing their growing knowledge of the nature of howinsects eat (mechanics, as well as what they eat). The everyday contexts created aconceptual space for working through the scientific ideas that the children were grapplingwith. The diffuse complexive thinking that were introduced at home for one child– such asbacteria aiding digestion – were being considered within the everyday context of creating amunching pacman person who eats, burps and digests. The children were bringing togetherideas outside of their direct practical experience and knowledge to something that they haveexperience of through animating the pacman creature. The data shows that for very youngchildren, playful contexts help children bring together their everyday concepts withscientific concepts. However, the playful events described in this data set are not random,but rather represented a systematic framework for the development of concepts.

Discussion

A Cultural–Historical Framework for Researching Concept Formation

Play-based programs provide a challenging research context for researchers to investigate,and few researchers have attempted to understand concept formation within the context in

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which it is used/developed (see Eshach 2006). Constructivist inspired studies have providedan expansive set of outcomes in relation to what young children know and can do across arange of areas (e.g. Hannust and Kikas 2007). Much of this conceptually oriented researchwhich foregrounds a developmental approach to explaining how children think, has beencritiqued in relation to very young children (see Cumming 2003; Christidou and Hatzinikita2005; Fleer 1990, 1999; Gelman and Kremer 1991; Pramling and Pramling-Samuelson2001), with some (see Metz 1995) arguing that misunderstandings of Piaget’s theorisation,has reinforced a belief that young children find it difficult to engage in conceptually abstractideas (see also Eshach 2006; Eshach and Fried 2005). A cultural–historical approach toresearching concept formation foregrounds the dynamic nature of concept formation, andadvocates that adult mediation within embedded contexts be studied (Ravanis and Bagakis1998). For instance, Vygotsky and Luria (1994, p.114) argued that ‘As soon as we movedon to the study of activity from the viewpoint of the process of its “Werden” (in a series ofexperiments drawn out in time), we immediately found ourselves faced with a cardinal fact:that, actually, we were not studying one and same activity each time in its new concreteexpressions, but that, over a series of experiments, the object of research itself changed’.Few studies actually seek to map and understand the nature of concept formation withinembedded contexts. Foregrounding the functional use of concepts within their naturalisticcontext (Sakharov 1994) must be taken into account in research. The present study soughtto explicitly map and analyse concepts in the context of their use or in the context of theirdevelopment. Although a challenging research design, the analytical framework adopted(Vygotsky 1987) provided a systematic way of examining concepts in the context of theiruse in playful situations.

Understanding Concept Formation in Materially Oriented Programs and ConceptuallyOriented Programs

In the first case study of a materially rich environment, the teacher’s program was focussedon providing equipment and resources within the framework of ‘potions’. This was a mostappealing activity for the children, and their focus of attention was predominately on thephysical exploration of what the equipment could do. In addition, a number of children alsoused fantasy to connect the disparate pieces of equipment together. They created a narrativearound the resources, a narrative which brought their everyday world and prior knowledgeand experience to the new equipment. For instance, the children linked the coloured water,the tubes, funnels and the bottles together with the branches of fragrant plants in order toplay with the idea of poisoning pants in their created (market) gardens. The childrengenerated narrative knowledge (see Hedegaard and Chaiklin 2005) to frame their play andbuilt everyday concepts about the materials they were exploring through the physicalmanipulation of the equipment (e.g. pouring the coloured water into the funnels and tubes).The narrative framework was used by the children, because the teacher believed it wasimportant for the children to determine how they should use the equipment – the equipmentwas provided to suggest possibilities. The scientific concepts that the teacher had in mindfor the children to learn were loosely defined as materials and their properties. The mixingof substances was important, and the funnelling, pouring and pumping of coloured waterwere significant experiences for the children. These substances and equipment wereprovided for the children to play with and use as the tool to support learning about materialsand their properties. The random probing and the narratives that were generated to givepurpose to the materials and the equipment, did not create a metaplan of exploration for thechildren, which could collectively build scientific concepts in relation to materials and their

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properties. Whilst it has been argued that narrative frameworks provide a relevant andimportant form of knowledge across some communities (see Norris et al. 2005), thenarrative knowledge that was being used by the children to frame their experiences did notsupport the learning of Western science that had been planned by the teacher.

In contrast, the second case study revealed a more systematic approach to investigatingthrough play. The treasure map focused the children’s attention on where ‘bugs’ could befound in the children’s centre environment. The equipment provided for the children helpedthem to investigate more closely, to capture and release creatures, and provided them withopportunities to document (through the map, collage and drawing/painting materials) whatthey were experiencing spatially. The teacher-child interactions were conceptually focussed(function and structure of organisms) across a range of play episodes, and the teacherintroduced explicitly science concepts (e.g. through books) within play exploration (not asmini lessons). The explorations during play were conceptually defined, and although somechildren created a narrative around particular play episodes (e.g. going to the dentist),theoretical knowledge building, rather than narrative knowledge, dominated in this centre.As such, the urban play-based program on ‘bugs’ was conceptually connected (form andfunction of living things), actively building Western scientific knowledge (as everydayconcepts and scientific concepts were dialectically related) as planned by the teacher.

The rural play-based program on ‘potions’ provided rich everyday experiences ofmaterials and their properties, building narrative knowledge in relation to separate pieces ofequipment and a range of materials. In contrast, the focus of attention by children as theyexamined ‘bugs’ was conceptual, and investigative probes were conceptually oriented. Thedialetical relations between everyday concepts and scientific concepts was foregrounded inthis program.

Ravanis et al. (2004) has also shown in a study of interventions in relation to preschoolchildren’s learning about friction, the significance of the teacher in framing the learning forchildren through mediated interactions. The findings have shown that conceptually orientedprograms afford more scientific learning than just materially oriented programs wherechildren are left to frame their own orientation to the materials.

The Dialectical Relations Between Everyday Concepts and Scientific Concepts

The findings of this study have shown the importance of ensuring that playful eventsinclude both opportunities and experiences for everyday concept formation and scientificconcept formation. When children are given progressively more everyday experiences,without a corresponding matching of scientific concepts, then children’s investigativeprobes tend to be only connected to events in their everyday lives – as was shown throughthe data of children working with potions. That is, children work horizontally only and donot engage in other ways of thinking (as have been identified by Vygotsky 1987: seeTable 1) as they interact with their environment. The learning context of potions providedrich and imaginative experiences for the children, which are also important for learning.However, the pedagogical framing did not support the scientific thinking that the teacherhad in mind for the children – it was located in the everydayness of the materials. Osborne(1996, p. 54, 55) has argued that “(Western) Science earns its place on the curriculumbecause there is a cultural commitment to the value of the knowledge and the practices bywhich this body of ideas has been derived ... and such a view requires that teachers havesome understanding of the epistemology of science – that is, the nature of the subject thatthey present to children”. Where children had opportunities for experiential everydaylearning alongside of scientific learning (program on ‘bugs’), there was evidence of a

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broader range of thinking by the children, and a more expansive range of elements of aconcept being explored. Overall, these playful events allowed children to probe in wayswhich ensured that concept formation was much more systematic and led to the children’sdevelopment of scientific concepts – as was shown in understanding structure and functionof living things. As such, the study has shown that playful events can provide conceptualspaces for the interlacing of everyday concepts and scientific concepts. However, specialattention by the teacher must be paid to the nature of knowledge being considered by thechildren, and care must be taken in framing the experiences for children in ways which givea scientific focus to their interactions.

If Western science is to be supported through play in preschools then teacher thinkingabout concept formation must move beyond what is in the teachers head about how thematerials will afford science learning, to thinking about how the teacher mediates sciencelearning through teaching. As suggested by Osborne (1996, p. 59), ‘for the scientist,theories are successful because they offer a range of explanation, non-ad hocness,consistency with empirical evidence, and logical consistency which gives them explanatoryforce that inductive generalizations lack...”. If this is what is to be afforded through Westernscience, then playful experiences by preschool children should be framed with teachermediation in mind.

In this study it was shown that teacher mediation which brought together scientificinvestigations and children’s everyday experiences, interests and world outside of thepreschool, afforded Western scientific concept formation. However, it is important to notethat research by Hedegaard and Chaiklin (2005) has shown that when a didactic programwhich only focuses on scientific concepts (with no connection to everyday concepts) thatlearning is not transformative of children’s worlds. Their work supports the view thatteachers need to have in mind both everyday concepts and scientific concepts whenbuilding concept formation in schools. The outcomes of this study provide evidence of howplayful learning contexts can generate scientific learning for preschool children.

As Vygotsky (1987) argued, it is through the dialetical relations between everyday andscientific concepts, that true concept formation results. Playful events provide an importantconceptual space for the realisation of dialectical relations between everyday concepts andscientific concepts – but clearly the ‘teacher as mediator’ is central.

Acknowledgments Australian Research Council (Discovery) funding provided the resources for the studyreported in this paper. Dick Gunstone was the co-researcher named on the application. However, due topersonal circumstances was unable to contribute to the part of the study reported in this paper. Importantly, it isacknowledged that Avis Ridgway made an enormous contribution to the project through acting as the mainfield officer for this study. Carol Linney provided specialist expertise to the project through transcribing videoand audiotapes. The time given by the preschool staff, children and their families is also acknowledged.

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