The purpose of this study was to take a look at the relationship between children's play behavior and learning-related social skills by age and sex. The subjects were a total of 208 children aged 4 to 5 who attended kindergartens and day care centers ...
The purpose of this study was to take a look at the relationship between children's play behavior and learning-related social skills by age and sex. The subjects were a total of 208 children aged 4 to 5 who attended kindergartens and day care centers located in the city of Daegu and 24 teachers in charge of them. The children's play behavior was measured by the Preschool Play Behavior Scale(PPBS) developed by Coplan and Rubin(1998). The measure of Learning-Related Social Skill(LRSS) was developed by McClelland(2002) and validated by Kwak and Yi(2007). The data were analyzed with two-way ANOVAs, Pearson's product-moment correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis.
The following are the findings: Firstly, there was a difference in the children's play behavior by their age and sex. Unoccupied behavior and solitary-active play were more frequent in the four-year-old children, while social play behavior was displayed more by five-year-old children. Boys turned out to be engaged more frequently in unoccupied behavior, solitary-passive behavior and rough and tumble play, whereas girls showed social play more frequently.
Secondly, the results also showed that there was a difference in children's learning-related social skills by age and sex. In terms of self-regulation, five-year-old girls turned out to be better than four-year-old girls, and girls were better than boys in terms of mastery and adaptation.
Thirdly, there were statistically significant correlations between some of sub-factors of children's learning-related social skills and their play behavior by age and sex.
Finally, the results indicated that children's sex and play behavior had some explanation power on their learning-related social skills, and that social play behavior, rough and tumble play and unoccupied behavior had major influences, on young children's learning-related social skills, and that solitary-active play behavior, solitary-passive play behavior, and sex enhanced their explanation power for self-assertion, self-regulation, and adaptation, respectively. These findings suggest that there are a wide variety of factors influencing children's learning-related social skills, calling for careful observation and facilitation of children's play behavior in order to improve their learning-related social skills.