An investigation of playfulness of pre-school children in Turkey

ABSTRACT

The first aim of this study is to examine the validity and reliability of the Children’s Playfulness Scale (CPS), which was developed to determine pre-school children’sdisposition towards play. The second aim is to test the effects of some variables on playfulness and whether such variables affect playfulness levels of children. About 196 children participated in the research group for testing the validity and reliability of the scale, and 600 children were involved in a comparative analysis. Results of the analysis showed that the ‘CPS’ was a valid and reliable scale. The interaction effect of related variables was not found to be significant. In addition, gender affected the social spontaneity dimension, and the number of siblings affected manifest joy and sense of humour sub-dimensions. Findings suggested that birth spacing between siblings, gender of siblings, and gender roles could be involved as variables in the future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Playfulness
• pre-school
• validity-reliability
• number of siblings
• birth order

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Sadiye Keleş is a doctor of education and working at Department of Preschool Education, Sakarya University. She received her Ph.D. from Gazi University and her M.Ed. from Marmara University. She is interested in self-regulation, socio-dramatic play and Cultural-Historical Theory.

Özlem Yurt is a doctor of education and working at Department of Preschool Education, Karadeniz Technical University. She received her Ph.D. and M.Ed. from Gazi University. She is interested in science education and social skills education programmes for preschool children.

ORCID

Sadiye Keleş http://orcid.org/0000-0003-3552-363X

Özlem Yurt http://orcid.org/0000-0001-6851-9974

Notes

1. Aguilar (1985) expresses as ‘perception or attitude’.

2. Alpha significance level of F-test was determined as .025 for the related variables