The Playground of Ideas: A design-based research investigation into dialogic thinking with six- and seven-year-old children in England

Abstract

The aim of this study was to design and research an intervention to develop the dialogic thinking skills of children in Key Stage 1. Dialogic thinking was conceptualised by drawing on strands of research from critical thinking and dialogic theory, together with argumentation and Philosophy with Children (PwC). The study took a Buberian stance to dialogue as oscillating between dialogic and non-dialogic relationships. The research methodology was design-based research (DBR) in order develop and trial an intervention within authentic settings and with practitioners as research collaborators. Following initial field and scoping work, the Playground of Ideas intervention was designed. It is a picture-based intervention that is used with PwC questions to explicitly teach children dialogic thinking skills. It was then trialled in a local context and an extended context with 10 classes across England. Revisions were made to improve the design following these iterations, and the intervention was evaluated. Children took a non-verbal reasoning test individually and groups of three, and their pre- and post-test scores were compared. The group tests were also video recorded and analysed to identify changes in the children’s talk. Children’s reasoning scores in both tests increased following the intervention, and also there was a great variation in children’s dialogue patterns to problem-solve and the roles that they took within the dialogue also showed greater variation: initiator, corroborator and questioner roles were distributed among the group members. This indicates that children were not positioning themselves or others ‘as’ a particular role, and that this resulted in a variety of strategies. A further outcome from this iteration was to use these insights to generate a new means by which teachers can assess if children are developing dialogic thinking in small group settings. This was theorised as oscillating asymmetry in peer relationships by building on Buber’s concepts.