Christine Stephen

• PhD Developmental Psychology
• Retired at University of Stirling

Young Children Playing and Learning in a Digital Age explores the emergence of the digital age and young children's experiences with digital technologies at home and in educational environments. Drawing on theory and research-based evidence, this book makes an important contribution to understanding the contemporary experiences of young children in...

This article draws on the findings from a small qualitative study which focused on gathering perspectives and accounts of experiences from nursery practitioners, health and third sector professionals and parents. It explored the ways in which parents/carers and practitioners experienced the nurture approach developed in preschool settings in Glasgo...

This paper offers a discussion of the literature of an under-developed area of early years research—the exploration of childminding or home-based childcare and the contribution which this form of provision makes for children and families. Despite growing interest in childminding at the policy level and some international research on understanding h...

This paper considers the pedagogic challenges encountered in preschool settings which strive to provide high quality learning experiences across the curriculum for three- to five-year olds while also immersing them in a second language. In our effort to develop an empirically and theoretically informed foundation for the development of pedagogic pr...

This paper describes some of the findings emerging from a small-scale pilot study investigating the potential of a tablet app, Our Story (Ar Stòiridh), to enhance language-learning opportunities for children in Gaelic-medium preschool playrooms. The intervention drew on design-based research, a methodology for investigating the relationships among...

Digital play and technologies are increasingly recognised as significant aspects of young children’s experiences and participation in contemporary, post-industrialised communities. As a consequence, many countries have begun to grapple with the pedagogical and curriculum implications associated with integrating digital play and technologies into ea...

This article is about the ways in which young children engage with technological toys and resources at home and, in particular, the ways in which the family context makes a difference to young children’s engagement with these technologies. The data reviewed come from family interviews and parent-recorded video of four case study children as they us...

There is a limited literature on pre‐school children's experiences with digital technologies at home and little discussion of the ways in which children harness these technologies for their own purposes. This paper discusses findings drawn from three studies that investigated the role of domestic technologies and digital toys and games in young chi...

We produced case studies of fourteen families based on nine rounds of data collection during the period from June 2008 to October 2009. We focused on fourteen children who were three years old when our visits started and used an ecocultural approach to examine their experiences of learning and playing with technologies at home. The study describes...

This paper sets out to examine the place of theory in preschool education, considering the theories to which practitioners and providers have access and which provide a rationale for everyday practices and shape the experiences of young children. The paper reflects the circumstances of preschool provision, practices and thinking in the UK in genera...

This paper sets out to examine the place of theory in preschool education, considering the theories to which practitioners and providers have access and which provide a rationale for everyday practices and shape the experiences of young children. The paper reflects the circumstances of preschool provision, practices and thinking in the UK in genera...

Offering Gaelic medium preschool provision poses particular challenges as most children only encounter Gaelic in the playroom and live in a context heavily dominated by English. Nevertheless, expanding provision for early years education in Gaelic is an important part of ambitious plans to revitalise the language. In this paper we explore the chall...

Schemes that seek to ensure that children have access to technology at home have, so far, been aimed at children over the age of 8. However, there is likely to be an increasing policy interest in extending similar schemes to pre-school children given widespread commitment to the value of early intervention in children's education and family life. W...

In Scotland in recent years there has been growing interest in a more play-based pedagogy commonly described as Active Learning. The research reported in this article is an exploration of moves towards creating an active play-based learning environment in six Primary 1 classrooms in Scotland and is concerned with (i) the children’s experiences in s...

This paper examines the extension of active learning pedagogical practices familiar in preschool settings to the first class of primary school. Policy and practice guidance in the UK is advocating the benefits of experiential learning as a way of engaging young children as they move into primary school but for teachers this means a move to new prac...

This paper reports the experiences of 150 children and six primary teachers when active learning pedagogies were introduced into the first year of primary schools. Although active learning increased the amount of talk between children, those from socio-economically advantaged homes talked more than those from less advantaged homes. Also, individual...

We describe two empirical investigations of three- and four-year-old children’s uses of technology, one conducted in family homes and the other in preschool settings, with the aim of comparing the ways in which children’s learning with technology is supported in these different settings. The studies conceptualise learning within a sociocultural fra...

This paper sets out to look critically at the influences on pedagogy in early years education, at the ways in which it is enacted in practice and the pedagogical perspectives held by practitioners. The aim of the paper is to explore the current state of understanding and suggest areas to be included in an agenda for future research. The factors tha...

We describe an eighteen-month empirical investigation of three- and four-year-old children’s uses of technology at home, based on a survey of 346 families and 24 case studies. The findings are reported in the context of social commentators’ anxieties about the ways in which childhood is being transformed by technology. Although we report evidence o...

First paragraph: The children in our studies were three or four years old. Like Andy and Evie they used technologies in different ways. They went to nursery, enjoyed active lives, and engaged in a diverse range of pursuits with friends and family. Whilst all the children had exposure to technologies at home their experiences varied: some children l...

We describe a two year empirical investigation of three- and four-year-old children’s uses of technology at home, based on a survey of 346 families and 24 case studies. Using a socio-cultural approach, we discuss the range of technologies children encounter in the home, the different forms their learning takes, the roles of adults and other childre...

Researchers who use video to record interactions usually need to translate the video data into another medium at some stage in order to facilitate its analysis and dissemination. This paper considers some methodological issues that arise in this process by examining transcripts, diagrams and pictures as examples of different techniques for represen...

Earlier observations suggested that young children’s engagement with information and communication technologies (ICT) could be unproductive. Interplay: Play, Learning and ICT in Pre-school Settings set out to explore how practitioners can enhance three-year-olds’ to four-year-olds’ encounters with new technologies in the playroom. The study took pl...

This article is an account of our attempts to understand preschool children's experiences with information and communication technologies (ICT) at home. Using case study data, we focus on what we can learn from talking directly to the children that might otherwise have been overlooked and on describing and evaluating the methods we adopted to ensur...

The aim of this study was to explore how guided interaction could create opportunities for learning with information and communication technologies (ICT) for children aged three and four. The study was grounded in the naturalistic environment of the playroom, in a context of free play and child-initiated activity, and focused on interventions selec...

The paper reports a study designed to inform the development of an information and communication technology strategy for the pre-school years of education. The main methods of collecting evidence were observations at seven pre-school settings and interviews with at least two practitioners and a number of children at each site. Practitioners general...

The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of socio-economic disadvantage on pre-school children’s development of competences in information and communications technologies (ICT). The study focuses on children’s experiences of ICT in the home and in pre-school settings in the year before they begin formal education, and seeks to investigate...

This paper explores, contrasts, and considers some of the implications of the different ways in which the culture of practice in pre-school provision is construed by various actors (‘outsiders’ and ‘insiders’) in the enterprise. ‘Outsiders’ means those with responsibility for the formulation of the curriculum, the inspection of provision and the tr...

This paper reports on the findings of an investigation of the experiences of 3- and 4-year olds who had all-day provision, either in one pre-school education and care setting or from a combination of providers. Here the data gathered about the children’s experience and perspectives is reported. The evidence from the children suggests that if all-da...

This paper reviews the international research evidence on the ways in which information and communication technologies (ICT) are used in both formal and informal pre-school settings. The review addresses the debate over the value and desirability of young children using computers and computational toys; the relationship of these technologies to a m...

Despite a commitment to inclusion and equality in the national priorities for school education in Scotland the experience of children as they move from pre-school to primary school falls short of being an inclusive experience for all and some children are at risk of becoming disengaged from education at the beginning of their school career. In this...

This article reviews the research evidence that relates to the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in pre-school settings. While there is widespread agreement that children should be helped to become confident users of ICTs, the literature presents a more qualified picture of potential benefits and barriers. The review consider...

This paper discusses the problems which can arise from the location of initial teacher education in two contexts, namely higher education and schools. An attempt to reduce the resulting dissonance by deploying practising teachers on an initial teacher education programme within higher education is described and the views of those teachers are prese...

This paper reports on research designed to explore alternative perspectives on playroom practice. Two perspectives on the role of practitioners were articulated. One was an outside, context-free perspective constructed in consultation with a group of experienced assessors of pre-school provision and presented as a Framework for Good Practice. Obser...

The emphasis on 'partnership' in initial teacher education is a matter not just of organisational structure but of professional practices and purposes. If universities are to remain key players in initial teacher education, they must support the occupational group that represents the sector's interests and values: university-based initial teacher e...

This paper reports on a study to investigate the relationship between practitioners’ descriptions of the curriculum and children s experiences in a range of nursery settings. Observations of children and adults in the playroom recorded the area of the curriculum in which they were engaged and descriptions of the activity or interaction. The data pr...

This paper looks at the impact of government intervention, the introduction of a voucher system, intended to expand pre‐school provision. Drawing on research designed to examine the impact of the Pre‐school Education Initiative during the pilot year in Scotland the authors argue that there have been significant changes in provision for under 5s and...

This paper reports an on‐going project concerned with quality assurance in the independent sector of pre‐five provision in Scotland. The work is set in current policy initiatives at national level and outlines the response of the Scottish Independent Nurseries Association to such initiatives. The paper outlines the development of a quality assuranc...

This paper raises a number of issues in the assessment of quality of provision for pre‐school children before comparing the quality of provision offered by community nurseries to that offered by traditional nursery schools. Quality at all locations was assessed using the Harms and Clifford Early Childhood Rating Scale and was found in each case to...

This paper describes a longitudinal and ecological evaluation methodology which features the involvement of those responsible for implementing the innovation being evaluated. The methodology is based on the assumption that objective research in the scientific tradition is inappropriate where the innovation is multi‐dimensional. In the context of in...

Staff in both community nurseries and nursery schools are concerned to promote the social, cognitive, linguistic and physical development of children. In the community nurseries there was a particular concern for children with social and emotional behaviour problems. In evaluating the nurseries children's progress in all these areas of development...

This research notes gives details of an atypical response to a 'give a number' task by a 34-month-old child. The child clearly demonstrated that he understood the word 'two' to refer to an object rather than to a quantity. This incident offers support to Fuson's (1988) theory of the functionally specific initial acquisition of number word meanings...

This paper considers some methodological problems in representing interactions between young children, technology and practitioners. It is based on work for an ESRC TLRP-funded project Interplay: Play, Learning and ICT in Pre-School Settings, the purpose of which is to identify ways of enhancing young children's learning with a range of technologie...

SYNOPSIS The expansion of pre-school provision has proceeded following the introduction of a voucher scheme based on a 'market' philosophy. This paper describes how such a market worked when one of the competing sectors, the local authorities, had a very substantial monopoly power over the others, namely the private and voluntary sectors. A combina...

This paper offers an account of the experience of using socio-cultural theory as the theoretical basis for an investigation of young children's interactions with Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) in pre-school educational settings. Interplay: Play, Learning and ICT in Pre-school Settings1 aims to explore the ways in which children's...

The paper reports a study based in eight pre-school settings that used a process of guided enquiry with practitioners to identify ways of enhancing children's encounters with information and communication technologies. Researchers used the concept of guided interaction to describe the ways in which learning could be supported and practitioners expl...

1 Background Earlier research showed that children's use of computers (the dominant form of ICT in the playroom) was characterised by brief and often unproductive encounters. Children frequently experienced operational difficulties, were hampered by their inability to read instructions and failed to complete tasks when the games or activities they...

This paper is an account of an exploratory study of the perspectives children and teachers hold about the learning experiences and pedagogical activities which engage primary and secondary school learners. The investigation was prompted by the apparent contrast between the enthusiastic, self-initiated engagement observed in preschool playrooms and...

The introduction of ICT (information and communication technologies) to the playroom can present challenges. How can practitioners respond to changes and create opportunities for learning with ICT? Practitioners and researchers worked together in the project Interplay to address these questions. They reflected on ways in which children’s encounters...