Triggering Motivation through Play and Curiosity
A special issue of Education Sciences (ISSN 2227-7102).
Deadline for manuscript submissions: 1 June 2025 | Viewed by 54
Special Issue Editors
Interests: motivation; teacher–student interactions; diversity; inclusion
Special Issue Information
Dear Colleagues,
In this Special Issue, we aim to investigate the ways in which play and curiosity have a role in education. Thus far, in educational research, the focus has often been on motivating students to perform predefined school tasks that are not intrinsically motivating per se. Play is intrinsically motivated: when children get the opportunity, they will play. Furthermore, a playing child is interested to see “what happens if…” and is not occupied with reaching an extrinsic goal. Play is an essential part of the social, emotional, creative, and cognitive well-being of children 1. The right to play is part of the UN convention on the rights of children.
We welcome a variety of research, ranging from studies with young children to studies with adult students in various educational contexts. Relevant themes include the role of play and curiosity in decreasing stress and anxiety, something which many students nowadays experience unhealthy amounts of. We anticipate that in education, allowing for play and triggering curiosity may foster intrinsic motivation and, thereby, diminish the extrinsic motivation that is accompanied by stress and anxiety.
Another theme we believe could be particularly relevant for this Special Issue is creativity. Thus far, research on motivation and creativity has typically been about their interrelationship, i.e., showing that motived students deliver more creative work. However, especially of interest to this Special Issue is how allowing for play and triggering curiosity in education may induce both creativity and motivation and allow reinforcement of one other.
1 E.g. Barros, R.M., Silver, E.J., Stein, R.E.K. (2009). School Recess and Group Classroom Behavior. Pediatrics 123 (2), 431–436. 10.1542/peds.2007-2825
Dr. Kim Stroet
Dr. Ineke Haakma
Guest Editors
Manuscript Submission Information
Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.
Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a double-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Education Sciences is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.
Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 1800 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.
Keywords
- play
- curiosity
- motivation
- engagement
- anxiety
