498337

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ECR12110.1177/1476718X13498337Journal of Early Childhood ResearchRamani and Brownell

Article

Journal of Early Childhood Research

Preschoolers’ cooperative problem

2014, Vol. 12(1) 92­–108
© The Author(s) 2013
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DOI: 10.1177/1476718X13498337
problem solving ecr.sagepub.com

Geetha B Ramani
University of Maryland, College Park, USA

Celia A Brownell
University of Pittsburgh, USA

Abstract
Cooperative problem solving with peers plays a central role in promoting children’s cognitive and social
development. This article reviews research on cooperative problem solving among preschool-age children
in experimental settings and social play contexts. Studies suggest that cooperative interactions with peers
in experimental settings are not as consistently beneficial to young children’s cognitive growth as they are
for school-age children. In contrast, both theory and empirical research suggest that social play like that
seen in early childhood classrooms is a context in which young children gain critical knowledge from peer
cooperation. However, these contexts differ in how much they allow children to create and sustain their
own joint goals, which likely influences their learning from cooperative interactions in experimental settings.
Features of cooperative social play that allow preschool children to create joint goals are considered, and
suggestions for future research are proposed to integrate these features into experimental settings in order
to provide a fuller understanding of the development of cooperative problem solving in young children and
its benefits.

Keywords
cooperation, peer interaction, play, preschool, problem solving

Children’s shared activities with peers play a central role in their cognitive growth. During peer
interactions, children learn new skills, motivate each other to face challenging situations, and assist
one another in practicing existing abilities (Rogoff, 1998; Rubin et al., 2006). Teachers incorporate
cooperative interactions into lessons, and classrooms that encourage peer interactions can promote
critical thinking, discussion, and knowledge change (Brown and Campione, 1994, 1996; Engle,
2006; Rohrbeck et al., 2003). A specific type of cooperation is cooperative problem solving when

Corresponding author:
Geetha B Ramani, Department of Human Development and Quantitative Methodology, University of Maryland, 3304
Benjamin Building, College Park, MD 20742, USA.
Email: gramani@umd.edu
Ramani and Brownell 93

two children work together to solve an external problem, which involves the coordinated use of
both individuals’ cooperation and problem-solving skills (Ashley and Tomasello, 1998). For
school-age children, these interactions can contribute to enhanced learning about problems and
performance on tasks (Phelps and Damon, 1989; Teasley, 1995; Tudge et al., 1996).
Although cooperative problem solving during peer interaction facilitates cognitive develop-
ment among older children, interestingly, preschoolers’ cognitive growth seems unaffected by
similar problem-solving interactions with peers. For preschool children, the experimental litera-
ture suggests that cooperative problem solving is no more productive than individual problem
solving, and children’s skills and abilities do not necessarily improve when preschool peers coop-
erate to solve problems (Gauvain and Rogoff, 1989; Perlmutter et al., 1989). Nevertheless,
researchers and theorists agree that in the context of play, cooperative interactions are essential to
young children’s cognitive development (Golinkoff et al., 2006; Heidemann and Hewitt, 2010;
Howes et al., 1992; Rogoff, 1998; Vygotsky, 1976). Furthermore, early childhood educators are
often recommended to use play in their classrooms to promote young children’s learning and
interest in mathematics, literacy, and problem solving (Ginsburg et al., 2008; Hirsh-Pasek et al.,
2009; Zigler and Bishop-Josef, 2004).
In the current article, we discuss how the shared goals of cooperative problem-solving situations
contribute to cooperative interactions that promote learning and development in young children.
We outline several factors that influence whether and how preschool children create and sustain
joint goals and learn from cooperative interactions, including the nature of the problem-solving
tasks, potential learning mechanisms, and the problem-solving context itself. Although others have
discussed and examined these and other factors (Azmitia, 1996; Gauvain, 2001; Tomasello et al.,
1993), little attention has been given to the contexts and situations that can promote shared goal
formation during young children’s cooperative peer interaction. We propose that a likely contribu-
tor to classroom social play interactions that promote learning and cognitive growth is that the
context facilitates joint goal formation by the children themselves. Therefore, integrating features
of social play into the study of cooperative problem solving can provide a more accurate picture of
preschool children’s cooperative abilities and at the same time can help us understand how coop-
erative interactions in classrooms may contribute to changes in preschool children’s skills and
abilities.

Theoretical perspectives
Several theoretical approaches posit that peer interactions are critical for children’s cognitive
growth. Vygotsky (1962, 1978) has argued that children develop cognitive skills by interacting
with more advanced partners such as more skilled peers or adults. In such interactions, children are
challenged to participate in more advanced problem solving than they would normally be capable
of independently. Children then internalize these skills for use in future problem-solving situations
(Tudge and Rogoff, 1989). Piaget (1932) suggested, in contrast, that peers of equal status or abili-
ties provide children with unique opportunities to learn, practice, and develop cognitive concepts
and skills. When peers of equal ability solve problems together, they must understand each other’s
views to reach a joint solution. Through discussion, children attempt to resolve their differing per-
spectives and advance their understanding of difficult problems.
Despite differences in their views, both theorists acknowledged the significant role of play on
children’s development. Vygotsky (1976) argued that the play context is essential for development,
especially in areas such as language and symbolic development. He suggested that because play is
child initiated, it is a context that allows children to have control of their own learning. Piaget
94 Journal of Early Childhood Research 12(1)

(1962) also suggested that play provides children with opportunities to interact with materials
around them that assist in constructing their knowledge of the world.
Contemporary theorists and researchers also describe how during playful interactions with
peers, children practice and utilize advanced social and cognitive skills to create, sustain, and fulfill
joint goals. According to Pellegrini (2009), during social play, children must effectively communi-
cate verbally or nonverbally with each other to initiate a cooperative interaction, establish the goals
and rules of the interaction, and work through any disagreements. Tomasello (2009) further argues
that successful cooperation requires that both children have a mutual understanding of these shared
goals and the processes to achieve them. Joint cooperative activities are characterized by this com-
mon understanding of the goals and the behaviors and processes necessary to meet them (Bratman,
1992). Creating, negotiating, and working toward completing joint goals likely contribute to chil-
dren’s learning from cooperation during routine interactions and play. In particular, Rogoff (1990,
1998) and Gauvain (2001) suggest that children can learn from partners by observing and imitating
their actions, working closely with them, and receiving guidance from them while solving every-
day problems.
Rogoff et al. (1995) also argue that to understand the processes and outcomes of how these
everyday interactions promote growth, it is essential to analyze the entire joint event or activity.
This includes examining the members, the context, the goals, and effects on later interactions.
Separating an event into smaller elements can provide an inaccurate picture of the knowledge
gained from a joint activity, whereas together these components can provide a more complete pic-
ture of growth.
Together, these perspectives emphasize the importance of cooperation and play where children
jointly create the goals of the interaction, as well as the importance of examining the dyadic inter-
action in context to understand how it contributes to cognitive growth.

Cooperative problem solving in school-age children

Research on school-age children’s cooperative problem solving is consistent with the above theo-
retical perspectives. Compared to children working alone, school-age children who work with a
peer are more likely both to enjoy the task and to complete it more efficiently (for reviews, see
Azmitia, 1996; Gauvain, 2001; Rogoff, 1998; Tudge and Rogoff, 1989). Following cooperative
interactions, school-age children tend to have a better understanding of the problem (Azmitia and
Montgomery, 1993; Rittle-Johnson and Star, 2009), are better able to generate relevant hypotheses
(Teasley, 1995; Yarrow and Topping, 2001), and are more likely to retain the knowledge they
gained from the interaction (Tudge et al., 1996) on a wide variety of cooperative problem-solving
tasks (Ames and Murray, 1982; Damon and Killen, 1982; Golbeck, 1998; Kruger, 1992; Kruger
and Tomasello, 1986; Samaha and De Lisi, 2000; Strough et al., 2001; Walker, 1983). Thus, coop-
erative interactions among school-age children in which they work together toward a goal that they
share, and to which they both subordinate and accommodate their behavior, have routinely been
shown to influence cognitive change by improving children’s performance, knowledge, and
understanding.

Cooperative problem solving in toddlers and preschool

children
Establishing a shared goal during cooperative peer interactions requires sophisticated social and
cognitive skills. Children must initially communicate to each other their intentions to work together
Ramani and Brownell 95

toward a common goal, and both children must mutually agree to do so. If the goals are not mutu-
ally agreed upon, then partners must negotiate these disagreements. Children can use both nonver-
bal and verbal communication to negotiate, establish, and maintain shared goals (Björk-Willén,
2007; Pellegrini, 2009). For example, children could gesture, coordinate their movements, or com-
municate verbally their intentions to each other (Brownell and Carriger, 1990, 1991; Eckerman and
Didow, 1996).
For the shared goal to be successfully achieved, members of the dyads must have a mutual under-
standing of the task, the final product, and the process to complete the joint goal (Tomasello, 2009).
During the interaction, the shared goals may need to be reestablished or altered, if the initial goal
cannot be successfully met. Children will again need to negotiate, establish, and change their efforts
toward completing a new joint goal. This process of creating and maintaining a joint goal requires
advanced communication skills, understanding of each other’s intentions and beliefs about the task
and the partnership, and the ability to adapt to the dynamics of the problem-solving situation.

Development of cooperative problem solving

In many experimental, cooperative problem-solving contexts, however, the goal is determined by
the task or the person presenting the task to the children rather than determined, communicated,
and negotiated by the children themselves. Both members of a dyad are given the goal and often
the process to complete it as well. Studies have used this approach to understand the development
of cooperative problem solving in the toddler and preschool years. Brownell and Carriger (1990,
1991) investigated toddler dyads’ abilities to work together on a cooperative task that required one
child to manipulate a lever on a toy to release a reward, while the other child retrieved it. Although
18-month-old dyads only occasionally solved the problem, typically, accidentally and unsystemati-
cally, 24-month-olds were consistently successful at retrieving the reward. Brownell et al. (2006)
found similar age differences on a simpler cooperative task and demonstrated that early coopera-
tive skills develop in parallel with children’s growing social understanding.
On a slightly more complex task that required children to both coordinate complementary roles,
2-year-old dyads were not successful, while 3½-year-old dyads were consistently able to coordi-
nate their actions and language to retrieve a prize (Ashley and Tomasello, 1998). Young children
can also effectively communicate with a partner about a task. When 3- and 4-year-old children
worked together on a pan balance scale to identify pairs of blocks of the same weight, they asked
each other questions, explained the task or their own actions to one another, and evaluated the
results of placing two blocks on the scale (Cooper, 1980).
Across studies, 2- and 3-year-old children attended to the task, monitored their partners’ actions,
and accommodated their own actions to solve the problem. These studies demonstrate that the
skills needed for successful cooperative problem solving, such as coordinating behavior and com-
municating with a partner to solve a problem, appear early and are well in place by the preschool
years.

Cooperation in preschool-age children

Even though young children possess many of the skills needed for successful cooperation, work-
ing with a peer on defined problems is not as consistently helpful for task performance and learn-
ing among preschool children as it is for school-age children. A classic illustration of these
differences is provided by Piagetian conservation problems altered into cooperative versions.
When school-age children cooperate on conservation problem-solving tasks, their understanding
96 Journal of Early Childhood Research 12(1)

of the task often improves (Golbeck, 1998; Miller and Brownell, 1975), but no comparable
improvement is found for preschoolers.
On a variation of Piaget’s conservation of number task, 5-year-old children were asked to divide
a pile of candy into equal amounts using two plates with a line of circles on each plate for the pieces
of candy. The lines were of equal length but varied in the number of circles, thus creating a dyadic
version of the classic conservation task. When children worked together, there was no difference
in performance on individual posttests after the cooperative problem-solving interaction than
before it. Furthermore, many dyads often needed interventions from the experimenter and did not
actually work together; instead, one child simply divided the candy for both children or each child
just took his or her own candy (Perret-Clermont, 1980). Thus, although young children have the
requisite skills for cooperative problem solving available, they do not necessarily put them to use
productively in cooperative versions of structured problem-solving tasks typically used with older
children.

Factors influencing cooperative problem solving in preschool

children
During a cooperative interaction, both members of the dyads must understand and agree on the
task, the final product, and the process to achieve the final product. In experimental cooperative
problem-solving contexts such as those described above, the experimenter typically specifies the
goals, which could be especially challenging to young children. In the following sections, we dis-
cuss how task difficulty, shared understanding of the task, and learning processes can all influence
young children’s ability to create and sustain a joint goal in experimental cooperative settings,
which could, in turn, limit their success and learning from the interaction.

Cooperative problem-solving tasks for preschool children

In the experimental problem-solving literature for preschoolers, task difficulty varies by several
factors. First, they vary on the cognitive skills needed to reach the goal, such as planning, reason-
ing, spatial perspective taking, or construction skills (Azmitia, 1988; Bearison et al., 1986; Gauvain
and Rogoff, 1989). Second, tasks can vary in the type or level of assistance, aids, or feedback
provided by the material or experimenter (Arterberry et al., 2007; Tudge and Winterhoff, 1993).
Third, tasks can vary in the number of steps needed to reach the goal or solve the problem
(Perlmutter et al., 1989). Fourth, some vary in the level or amount of discussion needed to com-
plete the task (Cooper, 1980). Fifth, they can vary in the number of possible solutions (Holmes-
Lonergan, 2003). Finally, tasks can vary on whether it is the members of the dyad or an adult who
establish how to reach the task goal.
These factors can influence the difficulty of a problem-solving task, which can in turn impact
the cooperative interaction between preschool peers. For example, Arterberry et al. (2007) com-
pared the cooperative interaction between 5-year-old children on a standard jigsaw puzzle or an
identical easier puzzle that included information on the back of the pieces to indicate their correct
location. Experimenters also told some children their performance was going to be evaluated later.
Dyads were more successful than the children working alone, and children who believed that their
performance would be evaluated performed the highest on the easier puzzle with aids on the back.
However, when children were given the standard puzzle, there was no difference in performance
between dyads and children working alone. Thus, task difficulty influenced whether the coopera-
tive interaction was beneficial for the children.
Ramani and Brownell 97

Task difficulty can also influence children’s cooperative behaviors. Preschool dyads were given
tasks that varied in the type of instructions the experimenter provided. One task involved copying
a model only with general instructions, whereas another task involved stringing colored beads with
specific rules. Although the dyads were more efficient at completing the bead task, they also
engaged in more controlling behaviors during the interactions, such as taking pieces from one
another. During the model-copying task, children were more likely to attempt placements of pieces
and remove or replace pieces in turns (Holmes-Lonergan, 2003). Providing dyads with specific
instructions made the task less difficult, but also decreased the likelihood that children would coop-
erate, whereas no specific instructions increased children’s explorative and cooperative behavior.
In a more systematic examination, Perlmutter et al. (1989) varied task difficulty over three
experiments. In the first experiment, on a simple computer game, 5-year-old dyads produced more
correct responses and at a faster rate than children working alone, but the same benefits were not
found for 4-year-old dyads. The 4-year-old dyads produced fewer correct responses, were no more
efficient, and were not more motivated or happier than children working alone. In the second
experiment, with a more difficult computer maze task, dyads spent more time working on the tasks,
but neither the 5-year-old nor the 4-year-old dyads performed better than did children working by
themselves. In the third experiment, 5- and 7-year-olds were presented with difficult computer
programming tasks over several sessions. The older children learned more from the dyadic interac-
tions, while the younger children actually learned more from working alone. Together, these results
showed that the benefits of working with a peer disappeared as task difficulty increased.
Overall, although preschool dyads can engage in cooperative problem solving, working with a
peer does not consistently increase motivation, performance, or individual learning from the inter-
action. As the difficulty of a task increases, it may be harder for children to establish joint goals and
to figure out how to achieve them by working together, perhaps especially when the experimenter
establishes the goal for the children.

Shared understanding of the task and goals

Shared understanding of the task can also influence preschool children’s ability to create and
achieve a joint goal during a cooperative interaction. Preschoolers find tasks engaging and moti-
vating when they share the responsibility for generating the solution. This can occur when tasks
involve situations that are highly familiar or are embedded in a script. Gauvain and Rogoff (1989)
presented 5- and 9-year-olds with a model grocery store and asked them to plan shopping routes to
obtain groceries on a list. Dyads of both ages created and executed their plans more quickly than
did individual children. Additionally, some preschool dyads demonstrated more advanced coopera-
tion skills than others of their age by sharing greater task responsibility and working more closely
with their partners. These dyads planned more efficient routes than preschoolers who did not work
as closely with their partners. This suggests that simply working with a partner on a task does not
by itself influence children’s understanding; rather, working together closely and consistently and
sharing responsibility with a partner are the keys to promoting knowledge gain from cooperative
problem solving.
Similarly, Duran and Gauvain (1993) found that task involvement and responsibility sharing
were associated with better learning among preschool dyads, especially during tasks that were
likely familiar to children, such as designing routes for a delivery truck. Five-year-old novice plan-
ners were paired with a more experienced planner who was either 5 or 7 years old. Interestingly,
children who worked with a same-age expert were more likely to plan efficient routes on the indi-
vidual posttest than were children who worked with an older expert. Novices paired with
98 Journal of Early Childhood Research 12(1)

a same-age expert were more involved in the planning and execution of task actions than were
children paired with older experts, possibly because they did not fully share the goal and the
responsibility for achieving it. Thus, when preschoolers are motivated to work together on a task
and the task permits them to share responsibility and a shared goal, they do benefit from coopera-
tive problem solving.

Learning mechanisms during cooperative problem solving

What dyadic processes and learning mechanisms support effective, productive, cooperative prob-
lem solving among preschool peers? Discussion and conflict are important mechanisms through
which older children gain knowledge from cooperative peer interactions (Forman and McPhail,
1993; Perret-Clermont and Brossard, 1985), but other learning mechanisms may be important for
young children to establish and achieve joint goals during cooperative interactions.
Because of preschoolers’ immature and variable emotion regulation skills (Kochanska et al.,
2001; Kopp, 1989; Ramani et al., 2010), conflict may be disruptive and distracting rather than
contributing positively to young children’s joint problem solving. For example, Bearison et al.
(1986) presented preschool children with a dyadic version of Piaget’s Three Mountains task, dur-
ing which they were asked to construct replicas of three model houses (Doise et al., 1975; Piaget
and Inhelder, 1956). There was no difference between dyadic and individual task performance
among 5-year-olds. In particular, even though dyads discussed the task, greater discussion and
conflict were not associated with children’s task performance or learning. Thus, compared to older
children, greater emotional arousal and less effective regulation among young children, combined
with the less advanced forms of communication and conflict resolution, may make it harder for
them to negotiate a joint goal and to agree upon a joint solution after a conflict (Azmitia, 1996;
Azmitia and Perlmutter, 1989; Cannella, 1992).
Other processes such as observational learning and guidance might be more important influ-
ences on preschool children’s task performance during cooperative interaction (Azmitia and
Perlmutter, 1989). Azmitia (1988) examined several processes thought to mediate preschool chil-
dren’s cooperative learning, including observation, conflict, and peer assistance. Five-year-olds
were asked to build a copy of a Lego model of a house, which required them to represent spatial
relations mentally and break a complex structure into its parts. When same-ability children worked
together (i.e. two novices or two experts), their building accuracy did not improve. Children in
mixed-ability dyads, however, built their models more accurately than did either novice dyads or
novices working alone. Importantly, observational learning seemed to play a more central role than
conflict of ideas in learning from the interactions. For example, the novices in the mixed-ability
dyads spent more time looking at the model than did two novices working together, as well as more
time looking at their partner.
Preschool children also assist less advanced peers by explicitly modeling a solution (Johnson-
Pynn and Nisbet, 2002), which allows the less advanced partner to acquire knowledge about prob-
lem-solving strategies by observing and imitating the more advanced peer. More generally, positive,
supportive interactions appear to be conducive to dyadic learning among young peers. To illustrate,
Verba (1998) paired 4- and 5-year-old children with a more advanced 5-year-old peer on a task
where children were to assemble a truck out of blocks. During the task, the expert peer helped,
instructed, and kept the novice partner involved in the interaction.
Thus, observational learning may be more effective in allowing young children to learn from
one another and supporting the creation and achievement of joint goals. By watching and imitating
their peers during positive, constructive, playful interactions, children can negotiate joint goals
Ramani and Brownell 99

behaviorally and can monitor their partners’ actions and compare their own behavior to that of the
partners as they work and play together.

Creating joint goals in social play contexts

One way to better understand how cooperative interactions and learning may be influenced by
shared goal formation is to examine contexts where children typically form their own goals. This
typically happens during social play with peers often found in early childhood classrooms. The
following scenario depicts children establishing the goal of their interaction, encountering a prob-
lem while attempting to meet the goal, and generating a solution to permit them to continue toward
the goal (adapted from Paley, 1986: 129–130).
In the doll corner of a preschool classroom, most of the children go outside to play, while
3-year-old Christopher is left cradling a doll in his arms. Another 3-year-old child named Emily
approaches him:

“Are you staying in, Christopher?”

“I’m the mommy,” he answers. “You wanna stay in with me?”
“Mommy, mommy,” Emily gives Christopher a kiss.
“How about you be the daddy, Emily? And I’ll be the mommy. And I can have a baby in my tummy. You
can be the daddy, okay? It’s morning-time, Daddy.”
“I’m going to be the baby, okay, Christopher?”
“Okay, Then you have to crawl like this.”
“I sleep. Babies have to sleep.”
“Okay, Emily, I’m the mommy. It’s nighttime. The mommy and daddy stay up late at nighttime. Who’s the
daddy?”
“I won’t. I’m the baby.”
“Maybe we can not have a daddy. Only a mother and a little baby …”

And the play around the house theme continues on between the two children.
This scenario demonstrates how both children must contribute to the definition of the goal in
order for play to start and continue, they must either possess or create a shared understanding of the
parameters involved in maintaining the play, and they must work together on the process the play.

Cooperative problem solving in preschool social play

Preschool interactions in play contexts may provide insight into how children create, sustain, and
achieve joint goals. Existing work on children’s social play, however, has not focused on coopera-
tive problem solving, and vice versa. One reason is that play can be difficult to define because it
encompasses numerous behaviors and forms (Göncü and Gaskins, 2006; Sutton-Smith, 2001).
Furthermore, cooperative interactions during play can be short and fleeting, since preschool chil-
dren’s social and social cognitive skills are still immature and developing (Pellegrini, 2009).
Third, children’s task performance or learning during cooperative play can be difficult to measure
because “tasks” are not clearly defined and can differ as a function of toys and setting (Garvey,
1990). Finally, much of the literature on social play comes from observational studies, while the
100 Journal of Early Childhood Research 12(1)

research described above on cooperative problem solving is primarily in experimental contexts.

Because the circumstances of social play are more varied than those typical of experimental set-
tings, it can be difficult to draw conclusions about how young children solve cooperative prob-
lems in social play.
Despite these challenges, examining the literature on preschool children peer interactions in
play contexts can provide potentially important insight into how children define, negotiate, and
sustain shared goals. This mainly involves types of social play observed in early childhood class-
rooms, including, but not limited to, social dramatic play, construction activities, and functional
physical play, such as climbing on playground equipment with other children (Rubin et al., 1983).
Other types of play such as games involving rules like board games can be an important way for
children to learn from playing (Ramani and Siegler, 2008, Siegler and Ramani, 2009); however, the
rules in these activities are already provided by the game.
During social pretend situations, children must work together to create the goals of the interac-
tion. When preschool children engage in social play, they exhibit remarkable and flexible strategies
for working through disagreements and conflicts by establishing what the problem is, discussing it,
and reaching joint solutions (Ashiabi, 2007; Elias and Berk, 2002; Garvey, 1990; Heidemann and
Hewitt, 2010; O’Brien et al., 1999; Pellegrini, 2009; Vespo et al., 1995). Because play must be
initiated, and can be ambiguous as to the goals and themes, there is often a continuous process of
establishing, renegotiating, and determining the goals of the play (Butler, 2008; Doyle and
Connolly, 1989; Evaldsson and Tellgren, 2009; Pellegrini, 1982). Thus, during social play, pre-
schoolers engage in advanced communication, conflict negotiation, and cooperative problem-
solving behavior similar to that of older children in experimental settings.
Imitation and observation also commonly occur during children’s play. Children imitate their
peers’ actions, nonverbal communication, and verbalizations (Björk-Willén, 2007). Children use
imitation to initiate play, sustain play, and to co-construct meaning or goals of the interaction
(Eckerman and Didow, 1996; Garvey, 1990). Before and during play interactions, children must
communicate ideas and reach mutually agreeable solutions about the roles and themes they each
will contribute to the joint enterprise (Bretherton, 1984; Göncü, 1987, 1993; Howes et al., 1992;
Rakoczy, 2006). This can happen through verbal discourse, announcements made to the other
child, or through imitating peers’ verbal or nonverbal actions, such as gestures and body move-
ments (Björk-Willén, 2007; Samuelsson and Johansson, 2006). Thus, communication, discussion,
observation, and imitation are important processes in the play context because they can serve as
ways to establish and negotiate the goals of the interaction, create a shared understanding, and gain
knowledge from the interaction.

Features of the social play context

Several specific features of social play may account for the frequency and sophistication of coop-
erative problem solving among preschool children compared to their dyadic problem solving in
experimental problem-solving contexts. A classic definition of play proposed by Rubin, Fein, and
Vandenburg (1983) outlines several key features of the play context. The play context is familiar,
safe, and comfortable (Krasnor and Pepler, 1980; Rubin et al., 1983; Vandenburg, 1980), and play
is highly appealing and motivating, even when children are trying to solve difficult problems
(Garvey, 1990; Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009; Rubin et al., 1983; Sutton-Smith, 2001). In contrast,
experimental settings do not necessarily motivate cooperative work for preschoolers and in such
contexts young children do not find working with a peer more enjoyable than working alone
(Perlmutter et al., 1989). Thus, play is familiar, motivating, and positive, which can facilitate the
Ramani and Brownell 101

creation of joint goals and young children’s desire to work toward it. Several other features of the
play context may also be relevant for cooperative problem solving in the preschool years and are
discussed below.

Freedom from externally imposed rules. One key feature of peer social play is that adults assume a
relatively limited role and children are free from externally imposed rules (Rubin et al., 1983).
During social play, children determine the rules, tasks, and goals of the interaction (Moyles, 1989;
Verba, 1993), whereas in experimental settings, an adult authority figure presents the children with
the task, determines the goal, instructs the children to work together on problems, and requests that
they come to joint decisions (Azmitia, 1988; Gauvain and Rogoff, 1989). When an adult is present
during play, children are more likely to talk to the adult than to each other, and the frequency and
sophistication of their social pretend play is decreased (Garvey, 1990; Pellegrini, 1983, 2009;
Pellegrini and Perlmutter, 1989). In contrast, without an adult’s instructions, preschoolers give one
another help spontaneously during play, such as when they are learning to play new games together
on a computer (Muller and Perlmutter, 1985).
One study has (Ramani, 2012) compared preschool children’s cooperative problem solving in a
playful, child-driven setting where they had greater control over creating joint goals versus a set-
ting that was adult-structured and adult-driven (Ramani, 2012). First, a story about two children
who needed a playhouse was read to 4- and 5-year-old dyads. In one condition, the dyads were free
to choose for themselves what they were going to build, whereas in the adult-directed condition,
the experimenter instructed the dyads on how to complete their playhouse. Dyads in the child-
driven play condition built more complete and complex structures than dyads in the adult-struc-
tured condition, even though the task demands were identical in both conditions. Dyads in the play
condition also engaged in more positive communication with one another and more observational
learning than children in the structured condition. Furthermore, the advantages of interacting in the
play condition carried over into a subsequent dyadic problem-solving task. This suggests that
cooperative problem solving in playful child-driven settings promotes positive outcomes among
preschool-aged children.

Flexibility of play. During play, problems that arise may be solved in numerous ways (Garvey, 1990;
Moyles, 1989). Thus, play is flexible in terms of potential problem solutions because the goals are
usually established by the children and can be changed accordingly. As proposed by Azmitia (1996)
and Garvey (1990), preschool children may have difficulty successfully completing problems
together in experimental settings because there is only one solution and because they have trouble
focusing their actions and discussion on a solution. In contrast, play is often about the process of
engaging and mutually creating, and less about being correct or productive (Samuelsson and
Johansson, 2006). This flexibility of play can provide children opportunities to explore, develop,
and discover novel and multiple solutions to a problem, for example, by allowing them to identify
and understand the various properties and functions of objects (Cheyne and Rubin, 1983; Garvey,
1990; Rubin et al., 1978; Schulz and Bonawitz, 2007; Smith, 2005; Vandenburg, 1980).
The flexibility of play can also provide children with opportunities to learn through observing
and imitating one another. During play, objects can take on many different functions, properties, or
uses. For example, in pretend situations, a block could be a car, a phone, food, or just a block.
Because of this flexibility, using toys during pretend is an act that is “socially constituted” in that
the people engaging in the play create the meaning during the play (Tomasello and Rakoczy, 2003).
Through observing and imitating one another, children can gain knowledge about the properties of
objects and the novel ways to use them, as they are created jointly by the players. Young children
102 Journal of Early Childhood Research 12(1)

engage in more pretend play after watching a demonstration with objects (Nielsen and Christie,
2008). Similarly, preschool children also learn about novel problems and problem-solving strate-
gies through observation and imitation (Sylva et al., 1976). The flexibility of cooperative play and
observation of others during play may encourage the discovery and transformation of problem
elements that result in the generation and evaluation of multiple novel solution alternatives.

Familiar themes. Children’s social play often involves familiar, script-based themes, routines, or
activities. Familiar events and themes guide, support, and facilitate young children’s higher-level
cognitive functions like those involved in planning and problem solving (Hudson and Fivush,
1991; Hudson, and Mayhew, 2009; Nelson and Gruendel, 1986). Having prior knowledge of a situ-
ation can reduce cognitive demands, which can allow children to create a shared task representa-
tion more quickly and easily and to use more on advanced communication during the interactions
to do so (Lucariello, 1990; Lucariello et al., 1986). Preschool children playing together more read-
ily discuss, take turns, assist each other, and stay on topic when themes are familiar (Carelli, 1999;
Furman and Walden, 1990). Scripts can allow children to discover mutual knowledge to establish
the goals of the interaction, to communicate during play, and to discuss the variables of a problem
(Azmitia, 1996; Short-Meyerson, 2010; Short-Meyerson and Abbeduto, 1997). This can promote
greater involvement and shared responsibility during the interaction. Thus, familiar themes may
support and enhance problem-solving processes among preschool children, such as planning and
monitoring, as well as important cooperative processes such as engagement, discussion, and
negotiation.
In summary, children’s cooperative play interactions, because they are characterized by few
explicit rules and little adult involvement and structuring, may be more engaging and motivating
and at the same time promote greater partner interdependence than typical laboratory-based struc-
tured problem-solving tasks. Furthermore, greater flexibility in generating acceptable solutions
that characterizes social play frees children to explore multiple alternative routes to solving prob-
lems together and encourages them to learn from one another by observation. Finally, greater
familiarity of play themes and settings supports establishing joint understanding and goals that
allow for more advanced individual and cooperative problem-solving processes, including joint
planning, discussion, and negotiation.

Suggestions for future research

Integrating relevant features of social play into experimental contexts may provide a fuller, more
age-appropriate and accurate picture of young children’s cooperative problem-solving skills and its
benefits. Based on the distinctions outlined above, several specific research directions can be pro-
posed. First, performance on problem-solving tasks in which the children themselves choose or
establish the theme and goal with minimal adult involvement can be compared to performance on
experimenter-assigned tasks in which the adult remains involved as an authority by giving direc-
tions and keeping the children on task. Second, the role of solution flexibility or the process to
reach the shared goal in preschool children’s cooperative problem solving could be examined.
Dyadic performance when children are permitted to explore the stimuli to discover multiple pos-
sible solutions to reach the goal can be compared to performance when dyads must work on a task
with a single correct solution. Third, the role of task familiarity on preschool children’s cooperative
problem solving should also be examined. Cooperative problem solving when tasks are set within
a familiar story, routine, or script can be compared to cooperation on the same tasks when they are
presented without such supports.
Ramani and Brownell 103

Several common issues could be addressed by these lines of research: (1) how cooperative and
communicative skills differ between problem-solving contexts; (2) how motivation, interest,
engagement, and shared responsibility differ between contexts; (3) how observation and imitation
are used in different contexts and how they relate to problem solving and learning in each; (4) how
goals are established and problems are solved, and whether solutions are more frequent and more
efficient and/or feature more sophisticated problem-solving strategies in one setting; (5) whether
knowledge acquired during the cooperative interaction carries over into individual posttest perfor-
mance more systematically after dyadic problem solving in one setting.

Conclusions and implications for educational settings

Our analysis has implications for future research, as well as for early childhood educational setting.
Although theorists have argued that preschool children learn about the world and engage in coop-
erative problem solving during social play with peers (Garvey, 1990; Golinkoff et al., 2006;
Hirsh-Pasek and Golinkoff, 2003; Rogoff, 1990, 1998), little existing research on play has meas-
ured task performance and learning. Future research that tests the factors outlined in the research
agenda can help better understand how establishing joint goals during social play facilitates coop-
erative problem solving and how cooperative problem solving functions in social play, which will
provide insight into how the features of play can be adapted effectively for experimental study.
The lack of empirical evidence on the benefits of play for young children is likely one reason
that play is often replaced in early childhood classroom and homes with more structured activi-
ties to promote children’s early academic skills (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009; Zigler and Bishop-
Josef, 2006). However, play and playful learning environments and curricula can promote
learning; educators, parents, and policy makers are highly recommended to utilize playful learn-
ing contexts to support the development of cognitive and social skills (Hirsh-Pasek et al., 2009).
It is critical to allow children sufficient time to engage in cooperative interactions during social
play in early child care environments. Because social play is characterized by joint goal forma-
tion, it can be a unique opportunity for promoting numerous competencies, including problem-
solving skills, communication skills, and reasoning skills. Children should have the support of a
familiar, flexible, and child-driven peer play context in which to learn and develop these
abilities.

Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit
sectors.

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