This research study is part of PICCO-research project. Picco is an ongoing research project that investigates children's science learning and thinking in social context of a multimedia environment in an early year’s classroom. The PICCO research project is conducted by Docent Marjatta Kangassalo, University of Tampere, both with research partner Professor Kristiina Kumpulainen, University of Helsinki. The international research partners are Professor Karen Littleton, Open University and Emeritus Professor Setsuo Ohsuga, University of Tokyo. The project will broaden and deepen the existing research work of the research partners particularly in relation to young learners’ conceptual thinking and learning of science within the social contexts of technology-enriched classrooms.

An extended summary

Aims of the research

The main goal of this study is to illuminate the co-construction of joint activity and meaning in computer-mediated peer activities. Of particular interest are the role negotiations and social elements of children’s explanations constructed during computer-mediated peer-centered learning activities. In this study children’s collaboration and social construction of meaning will be examined from the perspectives of the developmental and discursive psychology. These perspectives hopefully give insight on how children build up their skills of social interaction in a learning context based upon child-initiation, exploratory activities, social interaction and the application of multimedia technology. At a methodological level, the aim is to develop new analysis tools to capture the situative dynamics of social interaction in child-child interactions and social activities. This study also investigates how children’s social interaction develops from the perspective of developmental psychology. This includes taking account of both individual, social interaction as well as social norms perspectives on interaction. Moreover, this study provides insights into the meaningful application of multimedia in an early years classroom.

Research methods and procedures

Data sources. The empirical data of the study was gathered in two phases. First phase of the empirical data was collected from a Finnish early years science classroom community consisting of 22 children aged between six to seven years old. Of the 22 children, thirteen were girls and nine were boys. The children represented a mainstream of children in the Finnish society. To get the developmental psychology view on empirical data, the data collection was reproduced with same children at the age of eight to nine years. The data for the research project was collected by means of video-recordings covering pre- and post adult-child interviews and children’s self-initiated activities and interactions within the social context of the multimedia science learning tool. Children’s exploration paths during the use of the multimedia environment have also been recorded. Subsidiary data of the project consist of teacher interviews and parent diaries.

Pedagogical context. The pedagogical culture of the classroom community investigated in this study followed inquiry-based learning modes where a specific emphasis is placed upon the shared experiences of the learning community framed by social interaction, voluntary communication and joint meaning making (Wells, 1999). Children participate in the inquiry as active members who explore issues and problems of their interest, reason together and share expertise. Collective discussions often arise from children’s questions which are usually embedded within a particular theme or problem guided by the curriculum.

Technological tool. Peer-centred learning activities during the science unit utilized a Pictorial Computer-based Simulation program, PICCO. The simulation program has been developed for children’s spontaneous exploratory activity with the goal of supporting their conceptual learning whilst interacting with the environment. The pictorial multimedia program concentrates on the natural phenomenon in earth and space level. There is also a possibility to research nature phenomenon according to the concept of time. Picco multimedia program has been designed in a way that a child may explore the science phenomena from familiar to unfamiliar, from everyday experiences to more distant ones, thus, the program models the phenomena according to children’s own interests. In the program all necessary elements are represented as pictures and familiar symbols. All the pictures and views on the screen in changing situations have been constructed and represented so that they form peaceful and aesthetically valuable scenes, which is important to the user. Peaceful and harmonious scenes give the user a chance to pause, seek for something, or just look at the view very quietly. This supports a child's attention and concentration on the exploration process of the phenomenon, which again helps in imprinting things in their memory. The use of PICCO is based on the users' own activity. It is important, that children can proceed according to their own interests and ideas. In the program, there are no paths or rules on how to explore and go forward. Children can use as much time as they like each time. All this provides the user with possibilities to explore the phenomenon any time as long as they want and in the order as they so wish. The program is very easy to use and there is no risk of getting lost in it. A child can explore the phenomenon either alone or together with a partner. The program does not presuppose a reading ability. ( see Kangassalo 1992, 1997, 2000).

Qualitative, micro-level analysis of the data are still undergoing, especially the analyses of the role negotiations and social elements of children’s explanations constructed during technology-enriched peer-centred learning activities. In order to gain an understanding of the thematic context(s) of peer interaction, it has been important to conduct a content analysis first. Secondly, the purpose is to choose few case examples of the children’s role negotiation routes and investigate how the social formation of roles develop across early year’s level to school level. These analyses relate on illuminating the developmental psychology view on social elements of children’s explanation construction.

Conclusion

The importance of investigating the social interaction and collaboration among early years science learners is reflected in the fact that in today’s society social skills and collaboration are a crucial mean for everyone to cope with the authentic and complicated problems of everyday life. Consequently, the investigation of the structures of collaboration and social construction of meaning from the perspectives of the developmental and educational psychology is important, as the pedagogical practises learned at an early age seem to be carried on in later life as well. By investigating the language and social interaction from the perspectives of the developmental and discursive psychology, it is hoped that this study unravels important features of how children build up their skills of social interaction in a learning context based upon child-initiation, exploratory activities, social interaction and the application of multimedia technology.