Early childhood teachers’ roles in free play

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the IVth International Eurasian Educational Research Congress.

Abstract

In the world of child play, where do adults stand? What is the place of adults in children’s play? These questions have been considered in the literature regarding play in efforts to provide children with ample play opportunities. This study aims to examine teachers’ roles in free play. In this study, data are used to examine the type of roles teachers most frequently use during free play. Participants of the study were 141 public school early childhood teachers. Results showed that the leader role was the least preferred, while the onlooker-stage manager role was the most frequently chosen among the five teacher roles in free play. Moreover, participating teachers’ involvement in play is influenced by children’s age groups, years of teaching experience, number of children in the classroom and number of learning centres.

Keywords:

• Child play
• teacher roles
• free play

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

* An earlier version of this paper was presented at the IVth International Eurasian Educational Research Congress.