Investigating pretend play as a low-cost, flexible method for encouraging math exploration in children's museums
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[EMBARGOED UNTIL 08/01/2026] Early math learning is foundational for later academic success (Jordan et al., 2009). Notably, pretend play and mathematics share cognitive foundations in executive functions (Blair & Razza, 2007; White & Carlson, 2021) and symbolic understanding (Callaghan & Corbit, 2015; Casey et al., 2018; Flores et al., 2014), highlighting pretend play's potential as a low intensity, high impact tool for math learning. As such, this dissertation builds on existing research in children's museums by testing wordless, visual prompts intended to inspire pretend play (i.e., cards with symbols displaying options for play themes). Using a quasi-experimental design and live, naturalistic observations, I examined whether the presence of visual prompt cards impacted children's play experiences by comparing children's behavior between two exhibit conditions. It was hypothesized that the cards would lead children to engage in more pretend play and math exploration (e.g., counting, talking about spatial relationships). Results demonstrated that the simple presence of the cards in the exhibit did not impact pretend play engagement or math exploration, and use of the cards was infrequent. However, additional analyses demonstrated that, regardless of exhibit design condition, pretend play engagement was linked with greater math exploration, particularly for older children and girls. Additional exploratory analyses suggested that engagement with the cards was positively related to pretend play. These results suggest tools that leverage and evoke pretend play have the potential to benefit informal learning institutions as they may be a flexible and inexpensive way to enhance the learning opportunities in existing exhibits. They also highlight the need to continue identifying ways to promote pretend play in these settings beyond the cards tested in this study.
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