3 rese Arch MethodologIes
3.1 Research Themes and Questions
The main research question is:
How learning and the learning environment can be defined and how the school learning environment should be designed to accommodate the potential of the playful learning environment (PLE)?
The studies are strongly based on children’s (N=228) viewpoints, that is, their ideas about play and learning environments (Studies I and III) and experiences of the PLE in formal education (Studies IV and V). In addi-tion, teachers’ (N=4) experiences of the pedagogical use of the PLE were
Aims and
Contributions Research Questions
Study I
Exploring preschool children’s ideas regarding the play environment: children as co-designers of play environments - Richer understanding of the features of the PLE and its learning activities
1) In what kinds of environments do children want to play?
2) What are the tentative features required of a PLE and its learning activities?
Study II
Exploring children’s creative
collaboration and the role of narrativity in co-design processes: children as active co-designers and knowledge creators in their play environments
- Richer understanding of narrativity and creativity in children’s activity
1) How does children’s narrative thinking appear in creative and collaborative activity?
2) What is the role of narrative thinking and creative collaboration in learning and the PLE?
Study III
Exploring children’s ideas regarding the school and learning environment:
children as designers of ideal learning environments and creators of the future school
- Richer understanding of the features of future learning environments from children’s point of view
1) What do school children expect from an inspiring school and learning environment?
2) What are the main features of an ideal school and learning environment?
Study IV
Exploring children’s experiences of the playful learning environment in curriculum-based formal education:
Children as players and learners in the PLE - Richer understanding of
play, creativity and learning
1) How do children experience the PLE, gameplay and learning in the PLE setting?
2) How does the pedagogical Space Treasure game for the PLE meet the challenges of gameplay, creativity and learning?
Study V
Exploring children’s and teachers’
experiences of the playful learning environment in curriculum-based formal education: children as knowledge co-creators and players, teachers as tutors in the PLE
- Richer understanding of creative and playful learning
1) How do children and teachers regard the PLE and creative and playful learning that is based on game design, knowledge co-creation and integration of fact and fiction?
2) What type of new knowledge does the teaching experiment yield for developing a pedagogical model for creative and playful learning?
Table 2.
Research design.
Methodological Approaches,Methods, Data Sources
2-5 children per group of co-designers
Hyvönen, P. & Kangas, M. (2007). From bogey mountains to funny houses: Children’s desires for play environment. The Australian Journal of Early Childhood (AJEC), 32 (3), 39-47.
Refereed international edited volume:
Kangas, M. Kultima, A. & Ruokamo, H. (in press). Children’s creative collaboration – view of narrativity. In D. Faulkner &
L. Coates (Eds.) The expressive nature of children’s creativity.
Refereed international conference proceedings:
Juujärvi, M, Kultima, E & Ruokamo, H. (2005). A Narrative View on Children’s Creative and Collaborative Activity.
In H. Ruokamo, P. Hyvönen, M. Lehtonen & S. Tella (Eds.) Proceedings of the 12th International Network-Based Education (NBE) Conference 2005: Teaching – Studying–
Learning (TSL) Processes and Mobile Technologies – Multi-, Inter-, and Transdisciplinary (MIT) Research Approaches.
(pp.203–213), September 14-17, Rovaniemi: University of Lapland Press.
Kangas, M. (in press). Finnish children’s views on the ideal school and learning environment. Learning Environments Research. 4 children per group of game players
Kangas, M., Hyvönen, P. & Latva, S. (2007). Space treasure outdoor game in the playful learning environment:
experiences and assessment. In H. Ruokamo, M. Kangas, M.
Lehtonen & K. Kumpulainen (Eds.) Proceedings of the 2nd International NBE 2007 Conference: The Power of Media in Education (pp.181–194). Rovaniemi: University of Lapland Press.
Kangas, M. (2010). Creative and playful learning: learning through game co-creation and games in a playful learning environment. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 5(1), 1–15.
explored (Study V) in order to understand better the role of the PLE and various creative and playful learning methods in the future school.
The study of children’s creative collaboration in playful co-design com-plements the primary goal of the thesis, that is, constructing a theoreti-cal and pedagogitheoreti-cal framework for technology-enriched playful learning environments.
The aim in Study I was to explore children’s ideas regarding outdoor play environments and to tentatively define features of the PLE and the related learning activities (see also Hyvönen, 2008). Children’s interests were examined by gender, although gender is not a focus of the thesis.
The following research questions were addressed:
1. In what kinds of environments do children want to play?
2. What are the desirable features of the PLE and its learning ac-tivities?
Study II continued the data analysis carried out in Study I by training the focus on exploring and analyzing children’s creative collaboration, specifically the role of narrative thinking in their playful co-design situ-ations. This information was useful in endeavoring to understand learn-ing and knowledge co-creation when developlearn-ing a theoretical and peda-gogical approach for creative and playful learning. Study II discusses the following research questions:
3. How does children’s narrative thinking appear in creative and collaborative activity?
4. What is the role of narrative thinking and creative collabora-tion in learning and the PLE?
In addition to information gained from preschool children (aged 6 to 7) concerning play environments, I considered it important to involve older children in the research process, and to examine how
primary-school students (aged 10 to 12) conceived of their ideal primary-school and learn-ing environment. The study conducted to this end (Study III) provided novel insights for development of the future school, future learning en-vironments and the PLE as well. The focal research questions in that study were:
5. What do schoolchildren expect from an inspiring school and learning environment?
6. What are the main features of an ideal school and learning en-vironment?
Study IV was conducted very soon after the pilot PLE was constructed in the yard of the Kauko School in 2006. The study explored the poten-tial of the PLE in formal education and focused in particular on game-based playful learning in the outdoor playground context. The aim of the research was to test with the children a version of the Space Treasure game concept16 designed for the PLE, and to examine how it might serve curriculum-based formal learning. The following research ques-tions were identified:
7. How do children experience gameplay and learning in authen-tic PLE settings?
8. How does the Space Treasure game for the PLE meet the chal-lenges of gameplay, creativity and learning?
Study V continued the design experiments in the pilot PLE settings at Kauko School. The aim was to explore creative and playful learn-ing in authentic curriculum-based learnlearn-ing uslearn-ing a tentative pedagogical
16. Designed by Suvi Latva (presented in Hyvönen, Kangas, Kultima & Latva,
model – co-creative learning processes17 – and the Different World game concept designed for the PLE (e.g. Kultima, 2006; Kangas, Kultima &
Ruokamo, 2006). The following research questions were addressed in the study:
9. How do children and teachers regard the PLE and creative and playful learning that is based on game design, knowledge co-creation and the integration of fact and fiction?
10. What type of new knowledge does the study yield for develop-ing a pedagogical model for creative and playful learndevelop-ing?