Valuing pedagogies: Parents’ affective, behavioral, and cognitive approaches to preschoolers’ mathematical gameplay in virtual reality

This study aims to identify parental valuing pedagogy (VP) that supports their children’s solving mathematical problems using a virtual reality application (app). To guide the development of this study and provide a framework for data analysis, this study proposes an initial gameplay model comprising three components: affect, behavior (social), and cognition (ABC). Three parent-child pairs solved 12 mathematical problems, and their interactions were fully recorded. Combining qualitative categories featuring rich descriptions with quantitative findings, this study identified detailed VPs within each of the ABC components. Quantitative analysis results reveal that the most significant VPs impacting child positive responses (PRs) are parental reasoning for knowledge and experimentation. The next two most significant VPs are in the behavioral aspect: parents’ description of mysterious experiences and their initiation of particular actions. Affective VP does not significantly impact child responses, but may play a pervasive, yet hidden role. The app and computer usage also appear to play a role in parental utilization of VPs. The findings suggest that higher-order parental VPs are critically related to child PR during serious gameplay using an app.