Age and gender differences in preschooler's social-cognitive play : a comparison of two time sampling procedures
Date
1986
Authors
Murphy, Kenneth
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Abstract
The purpose of this study was to examine age and gender differences in children's play and to investigate whether two different time sampling observation procedures yielded different results with regards play preferences. Thirty three preschool children (18 males, 15 females) ranging in age from 3 years 1 month to 5 years 1 month, participated m the study. Subjects were filmed in the preschool setting over an 11 week filming period. Play preferences were coded using the Play Observation Scale (Rubm, 1984), a play scale combining the social play categories defined by Parten (1932), and the cognitive play categories defined by Smilansky (1968). A series of three multivariate analyses of variance (Manova's) were performed on the data. Age differences were observed for both the one minute (F=17.61, p<0.001) and the five minute (F=5,48, p<0.01) time sampling procedures. Results for the one minute procedure indicated that the three year olds exhibited significantly more solitary-functional play (p=.032), parallel-functional play (p<,001), and non-play (p=,048) behaviours than the four year olds. The older group exhibited significantly more solitary-dramatic play (p= 024), group-functional play (p=.045), group-constructive play (p< 001), and group-dramatic play (p< 001). Results for the five minute procedure indicated that the three year olds engaged in significantly more solitary-functional play (p=.031), and parallel-functional play (p< 001), while the four year olds engaged in significantly more group-constructive play (p= 002). Differences in male and female play preferences were observed only for the one minute time sampling procedure (F=3.55, p=.008). Results indicated that males engaged in significantly more solitary-dramatic play (p= 042) than females. Differences between the two time sampling procedures (F=21 54, p< 001), were observed for five of the twelve dependent variables unoccupied behaviour (p= 030), parallel-functional play (p= 012), parallel-dramatic play (p=.003), group-functional play (p= 027), and group-dramatic play (p= 005). It was concluded that the results of the present study supported the contention of Rubin, Maioni, and Hornung (1976) that the higher cognitive forms of solitary play are more mature than the lower cognitive forms of parallel play It was also noted that, while gender differences were not observed for either time sampling procedure (with the exception of solitary dramatic play) males and females did appear to differ with regard to the area of the room in which they played. It was recommended that this factor be taken into account when investigating gender differences m children's play preferences. Finally, it was also recommended that future research attempting to determine the relative accuracy of either time sampling procedure should focus on the five social-cognitive play categories which yielded significant differences between the two procedures in the present study.
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UN SDG 4: Quality Education