Revisiting the home learning environment: Introducing the home learning ecosystem

Abstract

This commentary paper offers a broader definition of the construct of the home learning environment and an updated conceptual framework. Recent empirical research has burgeoned on the home learning environment and is mainly examining how processes mediate the way parenting practices influence a child’s development and learning. By introducing the Home Learning Ecosystem, the paper presents a holistic view of the different home learning environment components and focuses on the interaction among those. It also expands and updates the way learning activities are perceived and acknowledges the quality of the home learning interactions – by distinguishing them from the general parenting styles – and the quality of the proximal caregiving environment as the heart of the home learning environment.

Introducing the Home Learning Environment Questionnaire and examining the profiles of home learning environments in Greece

“…Their interactions during these activities were characterized as warm and supportive, with low levels of conflict and inconsistent discipline. Overall, the findings of this study confirmed that the families' engagement in HLAs and the quality of HLIs are fundamental elements of a modern HLE (Gregoriadis and Evangelou, 2022).…”

“…A strength of the present study is that it attempted to assess three distinct types of parent-child interactions during their shared HLAs. Therefore, this study suggests that an essential feature of the HLE is not only what parents do with children (Sylva et al, 2004) but also how they do it (Dearing and Tang, 2010;Gregoriadis and Evangelou, 2022); thus, emphasis in intervention programs can be placed in supporting the quality of interactions during learning activities.…”

“…Despite the well-established importance of the HLE for children's development, several studies have used different measures to assess its quality that mainly focus on specific aspects of the HLE (Aminipour et al, 2018;Kluczniok and Mudiappa, 2019). An instrument for assessing the broad construct of the contemporary early HLE was recently reported as still missing (Niklas et al, 2016;Gregoriadis and Evangelou, 2022). Findings suggested that HLEQ is a promising self-report measure developed for assessing the HLE across families with preschool children.…”

“…The advantage of a person-centered approach is that it has the potential to identify the typologies of the HLE that share particular patterns of variations in parent-child interactions and activities (Jeon et al, 2020). Based on the conceptual framework of the Home Learning Ecosystem, higher levels of involvement in HLAs (indoor, outdoor, and digital) and Warmth/support practices reflect a more positive aspect of the HLE, where participants receive positive learning experiences (Gregoriadis and Evangelou, 2022); in contrast higher levels of conflicts and inconsistent discipline practices indicate poor or negative parent-child interactions in the HLE. In the present study four underlying latent subgroups were identified indicating different patterns of parent-child interactions during the learning activities at home.…”

“…Based on the above, the HLE constitutes a multifaceted construct that includes both "what" and "how" HLAs are implemented (Dearing and Tang, 2010). To this point, a recent study that introduced a new model, the Home Learning Ecosystem (Gregoriadis and Evangelou, 2022), describes a high-quality home learning environment as "a safe and developmentally conducive environment that offers consistent opportunities for formal and informal teaching and playing activities, indoors and outdoors. It provides space, stimuli and time for autonomy and individual play and also for ample caregiver-child learning activities of various types, executed in a positive and supporting climate.…”