Scott Pattison, Sabrina De Los Santos, and Smirla Ramos Montañez present poster at the Society for Research in Child Development Learning through Play and Imagination meeting
Pattison, S. A., Svarovsky, G., Corbett, A., Perdomo, M. E., Ramos Montañez, S., Wagner, C., López Burgos, V., & De Los Santos, S. (2022). Playful materials catalyze imaginative play and shift the nature of engineering design for preschool-age children and their families. Poster presented at the Society for Research in Child Development Learning through Play and Imagination meeting, St Louis, MO.
Abstract
In collaboration with Metropolitan Family Service (MFS), we conducted a three-year design-based research study to better understand how the characteristics of hands-on, home-based family engineering activities influence how preschool-age children and their parents engage in the engineering design process. Four themes emerged from the study: (1) Families used their imagination and activity narrative elements to set the design context, (2) Families evaluated and revised their solutions based on imagination-driven constraints, (3) Families creatively modified the design space, and (4) Imaginative play fostered user-centered design.