PLAYFULNESS OF PRE-SCHOOL CHILDREN IN TURKEY

Year 2021, Volume: 10 Issue: 1, 119 - 136, 30.06.2021

Dondu Neslihan Bay

Abstract

In this research, the playfulness of 4- and 5-years-old 181 children, 100 boys and 81 girls, attending a kindergarten in Turkey, was examined. The research was designed according to relational-correlational survey/research model, one of the quantitative research methods; the data were collected using Personal Information Form and Children’s Playfulness Scale (CPS) developed by Barnett (1990) and adapted to Turkish by Keleş and Yurt (2017). The playfulness levels of the children were analyzed according to gender, age, number of children in the family, duration of pre-school education, mother’s/father’s age and education level, mother's working status, and father's profession. To identify the playfulness levels of pre-school children, descriptive statistics and difference statistics were calculated for both overall and each sub-dimension according to the demographic characteristics of the children. As a result of the study, the playfulness levels of the children were found to be high and physical spontaneity was observed to be the playfulness characteristic with the highest score. Significant differences were observed in playfulness of children according to age and duration of pre-school education; whereas no significant difference was observed according to gender, mother’s/father’s age and education level, mother's working status, and father's profession.

Keywords

Playfulness, play, early childhood education, child, Turkey.

References

• Aksoy, A. B. (2014). Çocuğun gelişimine bağlı oyun aşamaları ve oyun türleri [Game stages and game types depending on the child's development]. Aksor, H. D., and Çiftçi, H. D. (Ed.), Erken Çocukluk döneminde oyun [Play in early childhood], (36-57). Ankara: Pegem Publishing.
• Aksoy, A. B., & Yaralı, K. T. (2017). Çocukların öz düzenleme becerileri ile oyun becerilerinin cinsiyete göre incelenmesi [Examination of children's self-regulation skills and play skills by gender]. Trakya University Journal of Education Faculty, 7(2), 442-455.
• Alessandri, S. M. (1992). Mother-child interactional correlates of maltreated and nonmaltreated children's play behavior. Development and Psychopathology, 4(2), 257-270.
• Alexander, G. M., & Hines, M. (1994). Gender labels and play styles: Their relative contribution to children's selection of playmates. Child Development, 65(3), 869-879.
• Barnett, L. A. (1990). Playfulness: Definition, design, and measurement. Play & Culture, 3, 319-336.
• Barnett, L. A. (1991a). The playful child: Measurement of disposition to play. Play & Culture, 4, 51-74.
• Barnett, L. A. (1991b). Characterizing playfulness: Correlates with individual attributes and personality traits. Play & Culture, 4, 371-393.
• Barnett, L. A. (2007). The nature of playfulness in young adults. Personality and Individual Differences, 43(4), 949-958. doi:10.1016/j.paid.2007.02.018
• Barnett, L. A., & Kleiber, D. A. (1982). Concomitants of playfulness in early childhood: Cognitive abilities and gender. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 141(1), 115–127. doi:10.1080/00221325.1982.10533462
• Bateson, P., & Martin, P. (2013). Play, playfulness, creativity and innovation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• Brewer, J. A., & Kieff, J. (1996). Fostering mutual respect for play at home and school. Childhood Education, 73(2), 92-96.
• Broadhead, P., Howard, J., & Wood, E. (Eds.). (2010). Play and learning in the early years: From research to practice. Newcastle upon Tyne: Sage.
• Büyüköztürk, Ş., (2018). Sosyal bilimler için veri analizi el kitabı [Manual of data analysis for social sciences] (24th ed.). Ankara: Pegem Publishing.
• Camgöz, A. (2010). Ankara örneklemine Penn etkileşimli akran oyunu ölçeği’nin 60-72 aylık düşük sosyoekonomik düzeydeki çocukların ebeveyn ve öğretmenlerine uyarlanması [Adapting the Penn interactive peer game scale to the parents and teachers of 60-72 months old children with low socioeconomic status to the Ankara sample], (Unpublished master's thesis). Gazi University, Ankara, Turkey.
• Carter, M. (1993). Catching the spirit: Training teachers to be playful. Child Care Inf. Exch. 89, 37-39.
• Choi, D. H., & Hyun, E. (2004). Examinations of young children’s gender-doing and gender-bending in their play dynamics: A cross-cultural exploration. International Journal of Early Childhood, 36(1), 49-64.
• Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences (2nd ed.) Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.
• Cornelli Sanderson, R. (2010). Towards a new measure of playfulness: The capacity to fully and freely engage in play (PhD dissertation, Paper 232). Chicago, IL: Loyola University Chicago. 8 June 2020 retrieved from http://ecommons. luc.edu/luc_diss/232
• Cukierkorn, J. R., Karnes, F. A., & Manning, S. J. (2007). Serving the preschool gifted child: Programming and resources. Roeper Review, 29(4), 271-276 (EJ929839).
• Fabes, R. A., Martin, C. L., & Hanish, L. D. (2003). Young children’s play qualities in same, other and mixed-sex peer groups society for research. Child Development, 74(3), 921-932.
• Gündüz, M., Aktepe, V., Uzunoğlu, H., & Gündüz, D. D. (2017). Okul öncesi dönemdeki çocuklara eğitsel oyunlar yoluyla kazandırılan değerler [Values acquired by preschool children through educational games]. Muğla Sıtkı Koçman University Journal of Education Faculty, 4(1), 62-70.
• Howard, J. (2002). Eliciting young children's perceptions of play, work and learning using the activity apperception story procedure. Early Child Development and Care, 172(5), 489-502.
• Howard, J., Bellin, W., & Rees, V. (2002, September). Eliciting children’s perceptions of play and exploiting playfulness to maximise learning in the early years classroom. Proceedings from BERA (British Educational Research Association) Annual Conference, University of Exeter (pp. 11–12). 27 May, 2020 retrieved from http://www.leeds.ac.uk/educol/documents/00002574.htm
• Howard, J., Jenvey, V., & Hill, C. (2006). Children’s categorisation of play and learning based on social context. Early Child Development and Care, 176(3-4), 379-393.
• Huizinga, J. (1955). Homo ludens: a study of the play-element in culture. (First published in 1938). Boston: The Beacon Press.
• John, A., Halliburton, A., & Humphrey, J. (2013). Child-mother and child–father play interaction patterns with preschoolers. Early Child Development and Care, 183(3-4), 483-497.
• Jones, E., & Reynolds, G. (2011). The play’s the thing: Teachers’ roles in children’s play (2nd ed.). New York, NY: Teachers College Press.
• Kalaycı, Ş. (2009). SPSS uygulamalı çok değişkenli istatistik teknikleri [SPSS applied multivariate statistics techniques]. Ankara: Asil Publisher.
• Kangas, M., & Ruokamo, H. (2012). Playful Learning Environment(s): Effects on Children’s Learning. In N. Seel (Ed.), Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning (pp. 2653-2655). New York: Springer. 17 May, 2020 retrieved from https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1428-6_756
• Kapıkıran, N. A., Kapıkıran, N. A., İvrendi, A. B., & Adak, A. (2006). Okul öncesi çocuklarında sosyal beceri: Durum saptaması [Social skills in preschool children: Determination of the situation]. Pamukkale University Journal of Education, 19(19), 19-27.
• Karaca, N. H., Gündüz, A., & Aral, N. (2011). Okul öncesi dönem çocuklarının sosyal davranışının incelenmesi [Examining the social behavior of preschool children]. Journal of Theoretical Educational Science, 4(2), 65-76.
• Karasar, N. (2008). Bilimsel araştırma yöntemi [Scientific research method]. Ankara: Nobel Publisher.
• Karrby, G. (1989). Children’s conceptions of their own play. International Journal of Early Childhood Education, 21(2), 49-54.
• Keleş, S., & Yurt, Ö. (2017). An investigation of playfulness of preschool children in Turkey. Early Child Development and Care, 187(8), 1372-1387.
• Lieberman, J. N. (1965). Playfulness and divergent thinking: An investigation of their relationship at the kindergarten level. Journal of Genetic Psychology, 107, 219–224. doi:10.1080/00221325.1965.10533661
• Lieberman, J. N. (1977). Playfulness: Its relationship to imagination and creativity. New York, NY: Academic Press.
• Lobman, C. L. (2003). What should we create today? Improvisational teaching in play-based classrooms. Early Years, 23, 131-142. doi: 10.1080/0957514030 3104
• Lobman, C. L. (2006). Improvisation: an analytic tool for examining teacher–child interactions in the early childhood classroom. Early Childhood Research Quarterly. 21(4), 455-470. doi: 10.1016/j.ecresq.2006.09.004
• Macun, B., & Güvendi, Ö. F. (2019). Okul öncesi dönem çocuklarının oynama eğilimlerinin çeşitli değişkenler açısından incelenmesi [The exemining of the tendency to play of children attending to preschool education ınstitutions in terms of various variables]. EKEV Academic Review, 23(78), 79-98.
• Masters, P. A. (2008). Play theory, playing, and culture. Sociology Compass, 2(3), 856-869.
• McNabb, D. E. (2015). Research methods for political science: Quantitative and qualitative methods. London: Routledge.
• Neuman, L. W. (2014). Social research methods: qualitative and quantitative approaches (7th ed.). Essex: Pearson Education Limited.
• Öztürk, M. A., & Ahmetoğlu, E. (2018, 11-13 May). Okul öncesi eğitim kurumlarında grup ortamlarındaki oyunun değerlendirilmesi [Evaluation of the game in group settings in preschool education institutions]. 8th International Conference of Strategic Research on Scientific Studies and Education, Vienna, Austria.
• Pinchover, S. (2017). The relation between teachers’ and children’s playfulness: A pilot study. Frontiers in psychology, 8(2214), 1-8. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.02214
• Pramling Samuelsson, I., & Johansson, E. (2006). Play and learning-inseparable dimensions in preschool practice. Early child development and care, 176(1), 47-65.
• Rentzou, K. (2013). Greek preschool children’s playful behavior: Assessment and correlation with personal and family characteristics. Early Child Development and Care, 183(11), 1733-1745. doi:10.1080/03004430.2012.752736
• Román-Oyola, R., Figueroa-Feliciano, V., Torres-Martínez, Y., Torres-Vélez, J., Encarnación-Pizarro, K., Fragoso-Pagán, S., & Torres-Colón, L. (2018). Play, Playfulness, and Self-Efficacy: Parental Experiences with Children on the Autism Spectrum. Occupational Therapy International, Article ID 4636780, 10 pages. https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/4636780
• Sapsağlam, Ö. (2018). Okul öncesi dönem çocuklarının değişen oyun tercihleri. Kırşehir Faculty of Education Journal (JKEF), 19(1), 1122-1235.
• Saunders, I., Sayer, M., & Goodale, A. (1999). The relationship between playfulness and coping in preschool children: A pilot study. American Journal of Occupational Therapy, 53(2), 221-226. doi:10.5014/ajot.53.2.221
• Shepard, L., Kagan, S. L., & Wurtz, L. (1998). Principles and recommendations for early childhood assessments. Goal 1 Early Childhood Assessments Resource Group. Washington, DC: National Education Goals Panel. 03 May. 2020 retrieved from http://govinfo.library.unt.edu/negp/reports/prinrec.pdf.
• Singer, E. (2013). Play and playfulness, basic features of early childhood education. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 21(2), 172-184.
• Singer, E. (2015). Play and playfulness in early childhood education and care. Psychology in Russia, 8(2), 27-35.
• Tae-Hyung, Y., Tae-Hyun, C., & Jae-Shin, L. (2014). The affecting factor on the children’s playfulness in South Korea. International Journal of Bio-Science and Bio-Technology, 6(5), 23-32.
• Tekin, H. (2002). Eğitimde ölçme ve değerlendirme [Measurement and evaluation in education]. Ankara: Yargı Publisher.
• Trevarthen, C. (2011). What young children give to their learning, making education work to sustain a community and its culture. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 19, 173-193. doi: 10.1080/1350293X.2011.574405
• Trawick-Smith, J., & Dziurgot, T. (2010). Untangling teacher–child play interactions: Do teacher education and experience influence “Good-Fit” responses to Children's play?. Journal of Early Childhood Teacher Education, 31(2), 106 128. doi: 10.1080/10901021003781148
• Tuğrul, B., Boz, M., Uludağ, G., Aslan, Ö. M., Çelik, S. S., & Çapan, A. S. (2019). Okul öncesi dönemdeki çocukların okuldaki oyun olanaklarının incelenmesi [Examination of preschool children’ play opportunities in schools]. Trakya Journal of Education, 9(2), 185-198.
• Youell, B. (2008). The importance of play and playfulness. European Journal of Psychotherapy and Counselling, 10(2), 121-129. doi:10.1080/13642530802076193
• Youngblade, L. M., & Dunn, J. (1995). Individual differences in young children's pretend play with mother and sibling: Links to relationships and understanding of other people's feelings and beliefs. Child Development, 66(5), 1472 1492. doi:10.2307/1131658
• Zachopoulou, E., Trevlas, E., & Tsikriki, G. (2004). Perceptions of gender differences in playful behaviour among kindergarten children. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 12(1), 43-53.