Comparing Guided Play and Didactic Teaching Methods to Improve Early Reference Skills

Abstract

This thesis investigates the skill of reference, namely how speakers provide just enough information for listeners to identify a referent, and explores whether guided play can improve this skill. While reference and play have been studied separately, they have not been combined, and play has not been tested as a method for training pragmatic abilities. The study also examines potential differences between anaphoric reference (referents mentioned within previous discourse) and exophoric reference (referents in the conversational context), as well as their links to executive function. An exploratory preliminary study investigated the opinions of a small group of primary school teachers in England (N=8, teaching between Reception and Year 6) to inform the design of the training study and consider these topics from an educational perspective. Although small in scale and not intended for generalisation, several teachers expressed interest in reference and play, tentatively suggesting the work may be relevant to educators as well as researchers. The study involved a multi-stage intervention across two schools in the South of England, run over 3 to 5 sessions with English-speaking children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 (N=59, ages 4;2–7;0, M=5;5). In the pre-test, children completed measures of exophoric and anaphoric reference, inhibitory control, and working memory over two sessions before being assigned to a guided play condition, a didactic condition, or a control group. Children in the training conditions took part in two exophoric reference training sessions, while the control group proceeded directly to the post-test, which repeated the reference measures. The study found mixed results for training exophoric reference, with effects appearing in one task but not another, potentially due to task similarity, design differences, or limited training. No clear advantage emerged for guided play over didactic methods, raising questions about how to effectively integrate play into experimental research. The findings also highlighted the often-overlooked distinction between exophoric and anaphoric reference, suggesting further research is needed to explore their cognitive relationship. Finally, the thesis offers novel evidence linking exophoric under-informativeness to executive function, particularly inhibitory control, pointing to a promising direction for future work.