The purpose of this study is to provide basic data on playfulness and peer competence, give right understanding and application of play, and provide useful data for further parent education and counseling in education field by exploring playfulness an...
The purpose of this study is to provide basic data on playfulness and peer competence, give right understanding and application of play, and provide useful data for further parent education and counseling in education field by exploring playfulness and peer competence of infants with different childcare participation and play belief of father. To achieve the goals of this paper, it employed 306 fathers of four or five year-old children in the public or private kindergartens located in Incheon or Gyeonggi-do and their class teachers as its subject.
To measure fathers’ involvement in child care, the scale developed by Choi Gyeong-sun (1992) was used; and for fathers’ play beliefs, the Fogel (2003)’s PPBS (Parent Play Beliefs Scale) translated and modified by Yu In-sun (2005) was used. To measure child’s playfulness, Children's Playfulness Scale developed by Barnett (1991) and translated by Yu Ae-yeol (1994) was used; and for child’s peer competence, the peer competence scale developed by Bak Ju-hui and Lee Eun-hae for preschool children was used.
As for the process of collected data, SPSS 14.0 program was used to compute frequency, percentage and Cronhach α coefficient and also carried out multiple regression analysis.
The results of this study are as follows.
First, since there was not any significant predictive relationship in explaining child’s playfulness with different childcare participation of father, the study could find that childcare participation of father does not affect child’s playfulness.
Second, in explaining peer competence of infants with different childcare participation of father, there appeared a significant predictive relationship. In other words, it was found that childcare participation of father has an influence on peer competence of child; and in particular, amongst the sub-factors of father’s childcare participation, higher participation in vocational training increased peer competence of infants. By looking into the results by different sex, the study could find that childcare participation of father has an influence on peer competence of boys while the sub-factors do not have any specific influence.
Third, in explaining playfulness of infants with different play belief of father, there appeared a significant predictive relationship. That is, play belief of father has an influence on playfulness of infants; and in particular, for the case of play oriented support amongst the sub-factors of father’s play belief, child’s playfulness is likely to be higher. By looking into the playfulness of infants by sex, it was found that the case of play oriented support amongst father’s play belief has an influence on playfulness of girls; and this implies that higher play belief of father increases playfulness of girls.
Fourth, in explaining peer competence of infants with different play belief of father, there observed a significant predictive relationship. That is, father’s play belief has an influence on peer competence of infants; and in particular, for the case of play oriented support amongst the sub-factors of father’s play belief, peer competence of infants was likely to be higher.
This study verified that there exists an influence of childcare participation and play belief of father on playfulness and peer competence of child. Therefore, the importance of childcare participation and play belief of father should be emphasized in parent education or counseling in education field and should be followed by adequate education to improve playfulness and peer competence of children.