Developing a blended professional curriculum for empowering early childhood teachers in loose parts play design in Thailand

Despite the rising profile of play-based learning, many early childhood teachers find it challenging to incorporate Loose Parts Play – where children direct their own learning using open-ended resources. This educational design research study designed and tested a professional development programme in four Thai demonstration schools, using a sequential mixed-methods approach. The 102 teachers' needs assessment showed difficulties on theoretical grounds and a lack of support from institutional grounds. A hybrid learning course with six modules was developed and implemented with 38 teachers using a one-group pretest-posttest design. Results indicated that teachers’ design competencies increased significantly (t = 4.53, p