Exploring Natural Pedagogy in Play with Preschoolers: Cues Parents Use and Relations Among Them

Abstract

Recent developmental work demonstrates a range of effects of pedagogical cues on childhood learning. The present work investigates natural pedagogy in informal parent-child play. Preschool-aged children participated in free play and a toy task with a parent in addition to a toy task with an experimenter. Sessions were extensively coded for use of pedagogical cues, such as eye contact and pointing. We present a series of analyses investigating the pedagogical cues that characterized natural pedagogy, how these cues related, and how cues bundled into facets. Implications for future research and determining the validity of these measures of natural pedagogy are discussed.