The use of puppets as a pedagogical tool for young children: A literature review.

The aim of the study is to summarise and investigate existing research on the use of dolls as a pedagogical tool for toddlers. The study is a systematic review of 105 peer-reviewed research articles.

The results show five areas of pedagogical use of dolls for children: communication, science, health care, creativity and behaviour. The researcher behind the study believes that the use of dolls in different areas and the number of articles on the topic show the many potential uses for dolls as a pedagogical tool in kindergarten. However, he emphasises that it is important to be aware of the tool's limitations, as not all children and adults react positively to or become engaged by playing with dolls.

A systematic search was conducted between January and May 2020 in three international research databases and Google Scholar using the keywords 'doll'/'dolls' in combination with 'early childhood' and 'education'. The studies were included if they focused on the pedagogical use of dolls in interaction with children (mentioned more than once), involved children aged one to nine years old, were written in English, and were published in peer-reviewed journals. A total of 105 articles from 80 international journals were included.

Råde, A. (2021). "The use of puppets as a pedagogical tool for young children: A literature review". International Research in Early Childhood Education, 11(3):22-39.