Socio dramatic play and reality integration in early childhood

Socio Dramatic Play In Early Childhood Education

The importance of socio dramatic play in early education has been a subject of discussion and analysis for many behavior theoreticians and, although there always seems to have been enough done in this area, the diversity of the human individuals and the capacity of the child to always surprise during his development period makes it an interesting subject to be tackled. Seen as "behaviors children use to transform the identities of objects, actions, and people" (Pellegrini, 1985), dramatic play has a substantial role in the early development of the individual.

The paper will aim to have a closer focus on particular aspects of the socio dramatic play in early childhood. First of all, we will aim to examine closer how elements from reality (including characters, objects etc.) are incorporated into the child's play in early childhood. At the same time, we will aim to focus also on the relationships that are developing within the group of children, as this is formed during the socio dramatic play. In our opinion, such relationships are relevant to the future development of the individual and to the roles he or she will be willing to assume later in society (leader vs. follower etc.). From this perspective, the study seems to bring added value on socio dramatic play in early childhood.

The independent and dependent variables can also be defined, in this case, in terms of input and output. As such, the independent variable, answering the question What do I change?, is also the input variable. Given the previous paragraph and the identification of those area the study will focus on, the question What do I change?, can simply be answered with the inputs. In this case, the inputs are the elements from the outside world, as they are presented to the child. For example, if the child will be taken to a puppet show, the puppets will be the independent variable.

On the other hand, the dependent variable is the behavior of the child and, more specifically, the way that he integrates the independent variable (the puppets, in the case previously mentioned, but also the animals from the pet shop or actual activities, such as running the pet shop or being a puppeteer), into his socio dramatic games. At the same time, the dependent variable is also the way the integration of a new character or object from the existing reality is likely to influence the relationship between the children involved in the socio dramatic play, as the second objective of our study.

The latter will probably be a more difficult observation to be recorded in a quantitative measurement, since it will rely very much not only on how often this happens, but on the underlying significance of the act at hand and of the social relationships between the children. It will also be important to determine whether or not that comes as a natural reflection of the integration of the element and characters from the real world or, in fact, from the capacity to be a leader/follower at all times. Even more importantly, this could also be due to the child's own natural characteristics rather than to the influences of the elements adopted from reality. Indeed, we do not know (and the study will not focus on this) whether leadership qualities are genetic or they come as a reaction of the interaction between a child/individual and society or the social relations that are formed between individuals.

This brings us to some of the limitations of the study. The study is obviously limited in its capacity of drawing a strict correlation between the inputs and the outputs. As previously mentioned, it is reasonable to believe that some of the reactions within the group are actually determined by the input of elements from the two field trips that will be used in the study. However, it is also reasonable to assume that they may not and the statistical perspective that will be used will not necessarily make light into this.

Review of Literature

The literature in the area of socio dramatic play in early childhood education is vast. Starting with Piaget, who has defined socio dramatic play as "the most highly developed form of symbolic play between two and seven years of age" (Piaget, 1962), socio dramatic play has been acknowledged as one of the defining moments in child education, with numerous reverberations in the future individual behavior.

Byrne, Deerr and Kropp (2003) have emphasized the role that socio dramatic play has in the social and cognitive development of the child as the primary educational activity during this period of life (Vygotsky, 1978). In fact, there were studies drawing on a distinct correlation between dramatic play in early childhood and the effect this has on early childhood emergent literacy (Fein, 1981).

The assumption of fantasy roles is obviously critical in socio dramatic play and several authors, notably Dickinson and Tabors or Smilansky (Dickinson & Tabors, 2001; Smilansky, 1968) discuss these aspects.

At the same time, Warash and Workman (1993) have shown that even if the socio dramatic play starts at an early age, often as early as two years old, the peak of such game play between the child and other children or the interacting adults is not usually reached until the age of four or five.

As the children reach that age, the socio dramatic play becomes more elaborate, with real objects becoming animate rather than inanimate actors in the drama (Berk and Winsler, 1995) and the children tend to transpose their recorded observations of activities and functions in the real world into their own action plays. Vykotsgian (1978) also has some useful work in this area.

Following on the leads mentioned above, Van Scoy (1995) draws the conclusion that exposing the children to such element that they can use in their socio dramatic plays will encourage their cognitive development and is thus a positive thing. The number of experiences induces knowledge and cognitive development, in his opinion, for the young child.

Many of the studies described and discussed in this literature review are fundamental in providing the necessary background for the study at hand, as well as to point out towards means of observation, the way that elements from the real world are integrated in child play etc.

Methods and Procedures

1) for a relevant study, we will select a kindergarten class of small children (preferably around 3 to 4 -5 years old, when, as we have previously seen, the socio dramatic play is most developed), number anywhere close to 10 members. The selection will be so as to have the numbers reasonably split between girls and boys, as it will be probably interesting to determine how sex affects the behavior of the child during socio dramatic play as well. This is not entirely necessary, as one also has the option of analyzing the behavior and socio dramatic play within the same type of sex group.

2) the measures to be used will include simple measures, such as how many times child X assumes a leadership position in the game, and this should be correlated with the character or element from reality that was included, at that particular time, in the child play. At the same time, the pet shop influence should also be measured in terms of who takes the lead and who comes with the new play ideas.

3) the children will be placed in an environment where they can be exposed to elements from reality that can easily be taken into their dramatic play. One will favor elements to which children are susceptible at this age: puppets, dogs and pets in general, cartoons characters etc. Most likely, the best choice is something that will contain both a puppet theater (especially since puppets are inanimate objects) and a pet shop, due to the behavior of children with pets and the capacity to analyze how they will be integrating both the animals and the actual pet shop activity into their dramatic play.

4) the trips to the puppet theater and the pet shop will not be done during the same day. For best results, they should be separated by at least one week, which will allow the children to sediment their new discoveries and thus the observance of their integration of the new discovered elements into their socio dramatic play will be more relevant.

For a better observation, two groups will be created. Preferably, the groups will contain both boys and girls, although it would probably be very interesting to see how the socio dramatic play relationships develop also with the same sex groups (as a change, one could decide to have two unisex groups for one of the activities and two mixed sex groups for the other one). One should note that these groups should only be made once back at the kindergarten, encouraging this type of mixed socio dramatic play. The actual field activities will be made as a unitary group.

As mentioned, the kindergarten group will proceed to watch the puppet show and, a week after that, it will pay a visit at the pet shop. The teacher, as well as the person conducting the experiment, will be keen to encourage the children to draw the relevant conclusions (one can read here the relevant characters or elements from reality) from their experiences. Questions such as "who do you think puppet X could be in your game" or "would you link to play pet shop in you own kindergarten class" are the types of questions that will become incentives for the children to use in their socio dramatic game plays.

As mentioned, data will be collected through direct observation. In line with both the objectives of the study and the hypothesis made, we will aim to see how the characters from the puppet theatre are included in the socio dramatic play. We will also analyze, statistically, which child seems to be assuming the leadership role more often in the socio dramatic play, depending on the different scenarios and characters used in their play and potentially draw a reasonable conclusion as to the relationship between the integration of some of the elements from reality and the assumption of a leadership vs. A follower position by the children.

5) it is difficult to point out to a statistical test to be used, given that a large part of the study is actually based on direct observation and qualitative rather than quantitative measuring. However, statistical elements such as the mean, median and/or standard deviation can be recorded to note the behavior of the children in the different situations implied by the assimilation of one of the elements/characters from reality. This will help draw relevant conclusions as to how leadership characteristics can be translated into numerical or statistical interpretations. Other more complicated statistical analysis will probably not be necessary at this stage of the study.