Veresov Nikolai, Veraksa Aleksander, Gavrilova Margarita, Sukhikh Vera
School of Education Culture & Society, Monash University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia.
Faculty of Psychology, Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia.
Front Psychol. 2021 Dec 6;12:779023. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.779023. eCollection 2021.
The cultural-historical approach provides the deep theoretical grounds for the analysis of children's play. Vygotsky suggested three critical features of play: switching to an imaginary situation, taking on a play role, and acting according to a set of rules defined by the role. Collaboration, finding ideas and materials for creating an imaginary situation, defining play roles, and planning the plot are complex tasks for children. However, the question is, do children need educator's support during the play to develop their executive functions, and to what extent? This experimental study was aimed at answering this inquiry. The four modes of sociodramatic play were created which differed in the adult intervention, from non-involvement in the play to its entire organization. The play could be child-led (with adult help), adult-led, or free (without any adult intervention); and there was also a control group where the children heard the same stimulus stories as the other groups but then followed them up with a drawing activity instead of a play activity. The study revealed that, firstly, the ways of educator's involvement in the play differed in their potential in respect to the development of executive functions, and, secondly, this influence was not equal for different components of executive functions. Free play in the experiment was not a beneficial condition for the development of any of the studied components of executive functions, compared to the conditions involving the participation of an adult in the play. Furthermore, the type of adult intervention stimulated the development of various executive functions. The entire organization of the play by the adult had a positive impact of their general development. In contrast, the adult's assistance in the organization of the children's play had a positive effect on the development of inhibitory control. The study results can be helpful when considering educational practices within a cultural-historical approach to engaging the potential of play in children's learning and development around the world.
文化历史方法为分析儿童游戏提供了深厚的理论基础。维果茨基提出了游戏的三个关键特征：转换到想象情境、扮演游戏角色以及根据角色所定义的一组规则行事。协作、寻找创造想象情境的想法和材料、定义游戏角色以及规划情节对儿童来说都是复杂的任务。然而，问题在于，儿童在游戏过程中是否需要教育者的支持来发展其执行功能，以及需要何种程度的支持？这项实验研究旨在回答这一问题。研究创造了四种社会戏剧游戏模式，它们在成人干预程度上有所不同——从不参与游戏到完全组织游戏。游戏可以是儿童主导（有成人协助）、成人主导或自由游戏（无任何成人干预）；此外还有一个对照组，在该组中儿童听到的刺激故事与其他组相同，但随后进行绘画活动而非游戏活动。研究表明，首先，教育者参与游戏的方式在促进执行功能发展方面的潜力有所不同；其次，这种影响对于执行功能的不同组成部分并不相同。与成人参与游戏的情况相比，实验中的自由游戏对所研究的任何执行功能组成部分的发展都并非有利条件。此外，成人干预的类型会刺激不同执行功能的发展。成人对游戏的完全组织对儿童的整体发展有积极影响。相比之下，成人在组织儿童游戏方面的协助对抑制控制的发展有积极作用。当考虑在文化历史方法框架内的教育实践，以挖掘游戏在世界各地儿童学习和发展中的潜力时，该研究结果可能会有所帮助。
