Children’s play preferences: implications for the preschool education

Abstract

Previously we found in preschool that child‐directed pretend play in small playing groups importantly improves cognitive competence in mixed‐age environment and that the effect is based on close coupling between affective and cognitive domain. To foster affective and cognitive intertwining, it is reasonable to select the most favored pretend plays evoking maximum positive emotions during the playing process. The goal here was to investigate play preferences in mixed‐aged and gender classes. We found that girls significantly preferred pretend play (mean number of players ± standard error of the mean, number of analyzed plays: girls versus boys, 2.35 ± 0.03, n = 3006 versus 2.13 ± 0.04, n = 3001, p < 0.0001) as opposed to boys, who favored constructive play (boys versus girls, 2.47 ± 0.04, n = 2884 versus 2.27 ± 0.04, n = 2883, p = 0.0004). The most preferred pretend play, acceptable for both genders, arise from family environment, comprising a potentially effective ‘carrier’ of the cognitive skills by easy and pleasurable manner.

Keywords:

• cognitive gain
• constructive play
• free children play
• kindergarten teacher
• pretend play