The role of play is agreed by both Piaget and Vygotsky to be vital to cognitive development.  Vygotsky also goes on to say that both play and peers are also important to both cognitive and social development.  This essay will evaluate the research used to investigate these claims regarding the influence of both peers and play, as the validity of a theory relies on the quality of the empirical evidence supporting it.

Introduction and focus on the question: a brief mapping of the planned essay and explains the issue - why evaluation of empirical evidence is important in psychology.

Pepler & Ross (1989) conducted a field experiment using 72 three and 4-year-olds in day care centres to study how play may affect thinking.  The children were randomly allocated into three groups.  One group was given convergent play materials – a puzzle – and one was given divergent materials – building blocks.  The control group did not play but was read a story.  After playing, the children from all three groups were tested individually on their divergent thinking, and children who had previously played with the divergent play materials scored higher than those in the other two groups.

Knowledge and understanding shown of research into convergent and divergent play.

However, there were some methodological limitations.  Firstly, because the children were tested immediately after playing with the different types of materials, only the short-term effects of either convergent or divergent play were tested. Therefore, these results cannot be generalised as the long-term effects of divergent play.

Also, although the children were randomly assigned to groups, we cannot be sure that they were all at the same stage of cognitive development, and that participant variability was not a confounding variable.  Finally, the materials (either divergent or convergent) that they were required to play with may not have represented their preferences, and so they may not have engaged as well as they would if given free choice, impacting the validity of the study.

However, a strength of the study is that the researchers noted the behaviour of children from all three groups very carefully, and identified that the convergent players were able to perform a similar convergent task very quickly once they had practised with the puzzle; but they were not able to perform a dissimilar convergent task any quicker or more successfully than children from the other two groups.  The divergent players were able to transfer their imaginative play from blocks to other tasks, demonstrating more flexibility of thought and transfer of skills.  This careful analysis of all behaviour adds to the validity of the findings.

Use of research to support answer: further evaluation of Pepler & Ross

Clarity and organization throughout: each paragraph makes a logical connection with the one before it.

Russ, Robins & Christiano (2010) investigated the correlation between imaginative pretend play and creativity in the same children at ages 6 - 7 and again four years later.  This longitudinal study served to correct some of the limitations noted in Pepler & Ross’s research. A strength of was that they did not randomly assign children to groups, but instead tested the developmental stage of the children's play through Russ’s Affect in Play Scale (APS) to all 121 children.  Each child also completed a test of divergent thinking and an IQ test, to control for differences in intelligence.

Use of research to support answer: a strength of Russ et al.’s longitudinal research and control for participant variability.

Knowledge and understanding of the research method shown.

In their follow-up four years later, Russ, Robins & Christiano used several different observational tests and questionnaires to measure each child’s creativity in real life.  Some were conducted in school over a period of a term, so negating social desirability effects. Others were conducted, again in school, during the following year by a different researcher, thus decreasing researcher bias.  Their research showed a positive correlation between creativity and divergent thinking in children when younger and again four years later.

One limitation of their research was the dropping out of 90 children from the original study, with only 31 of the younger children followed up. Although there is no reason to suppose that those that were unavailable for the follow-up study were untypical, those who agreed to participate for the second time may have been naturally more social and this may have affected the internal and external validity of the results.

Finally, Coie & Dodge (1988) investigated the role of peers in play and the subsequent influence on cognitive and social development.  While Vygotsky saw peers as assisting cognitive and social development, Coie & Dodge realised that if peers refused to let some children play with them, they were actually hindering these children’s cognitive and social development. ‘Peer’ does not always equal ‘friend.’  They conducted an analysis of sociometric data obtained through peer and teacher assessment and researcher observations of 6-9 year old boys’ behaviour in over 20 first-grade and third-grade classrooms to investigate the relationship between a boy’s peer status and his academic behaviour in class (cognitive development) and social interaction inside and outside the classroom (social development). Unsurprisingly, boys’ social and cognitive development was affected negatively by peer rejection.

Use of research to support answer: description of Coie & Dodge’s research

One limitation of this study is the gender bias: Coie and Dodge used only boys.  But the omission of girls impacts the generalizability of the results.  It was also conducted in one urban area of North Carolina and this also limits the generalizability of the findings. A strength is that the data came from multiple sources – the boys themselves, their teachers and the experienced observers.  It also distinguished between rejected (aggressive) and rejected (withdrawn) status, without confusing the withdrawn status with the neglected status of a boy who chooses to be on his own, and would not necessarily be automatically rejected by his peers.

Use of research to support answer: evaluation of Coie & Dodge’s research – limitations and strengths identified and explained.

In conclusion, these studies differed in their complexity, but agreed in their findings, that play has a positive influence on both cognitive and social development. All of the studies here were done in a single culture, so there is are questions as to the universal nature of the theories.