The Relationship Between Canadian Children’s Out-of-school Play, Creativity, Academic Achievement, and School Behaviour

Author(s):

Joanne Shari Lehrer

Conference:

ECER 2008

Network:

16. ICT in Education and Training

Format:

Poster

Session Information

MC_Poster, Poster Session; Main Conference

All Poster are presented in the two Poster Sessions of ECER 2008: - 11 September 12.15 - 13.15 and - 12 September 12.15 - 13.15

Time:

2008-09-11

12:15-13:15

Room:

Poster Exhibition Area

Chair:

Contribution

Purpose of the study and theoretical framework It is frequently claimed that how students spend their non-school hours has an impact on their social and academic development (Hofferth & Jankuniene, 2001; Miller, O’Connor & Sirignano, 1995). Unstructured play is the activity young children most frequently engage in when they have control over their time (Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001; Lareau, 2000; Tudge et al, 2001). Play has been linked to cognitive, social, and emotional development, as well as creativity, in early childhood, both theoretically and through educational research (e.g., Bredekamp & Copple, 1997; Ginsburg, 2007; Piaget, 1962; Runco, 1996; Tsao, 2002). While preschool and kindergarten programs are often based on the premise of “learning through play”, research has shown that the amount of time children spend playing, both in and out of school, decreases dramatically as children begin grade one (Hartmann & Rollett, 1994; Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001; Patton & Mercer, 1996; Yeom, 1998). In a previous study, we documented how lack of time and materials, and the demands of the curriculum, restricted grade one teachers’ ability to implement play activities in the classroom, despite their belief in the value of play for children’s learning (Lehrer, Quance Stathopoulos, Petrakos, 2007). In addition, little is known about the value of play beyond kindergarten age - in particular whether or not these activities are associated with school based social, academic or creative development has been understudied. Therefore, the present investigation examined six- and seven- year-old children’s out-of-school play, and whether particular forms of play, or particular social arrangements during play, predict cognitive, social, emotional or creativity outcomes in school.

Method

Methodology and research instruments Seventy-five grade one children (40 males, 35 females) from six suburban neighbourhoods outside of Montreal, and their parents and teachers participated in this study. Approximately two-thirds of the children attended French immersion programs, while the remainder attended English language programs. The majority of parents were born in Canada (61 mothers, 57 fathers), and the majority of mothers (37) and fathers (36) speak English at home. Other languages spoken at home included French (26 mothers, 17 fathers) as well as Arabic, Italian, Spanish, Vietnamese, Portuguese, Korean, Mandarin, Romanian, Polish, Hungarian and Kachi. Parents completed the Daily Activities Questionnaire. This measure was designed by the first author as a recall time diary (Ben-Arieh & Ofir, 2002); parents recorded the amount of time children spent engaged in particular activities, as well as whom the child was playing with and where the activity took place. It was adapted from Parmar’s (2000) Daily Activities Checklist and the University of Michigan’s Panel Study of Income Dynamic’s Time Diary Questionnaire (Hofferth & Sandberg, 2001), and contained closed-ended questions about the amount of time children are engaged in particular types of play (e.g., active play, constructive play), homework tasks, structured activities, daycare, and media use. Parents were probed about whom the child was with, where the activity took place, and whether the child was doing anything else at the same time. The questionnaire also contained an open-ended section including items such as: Is there anything you would like to change, or wish you could change, about how your child spends his/her time after school?; Do you think that play is important for your child at his/her present age? The children’s school report card grades were collected from the school, a standardized creativity measure (Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement; Torrence, 1981) was administered to each child individually at school, and teachers completed a standardized behaviour measure (Behavior Assessment System for Children, second edition; Reynolds & Kamphaus, 2004).

Expected Outcomes

Timeline and expected outcomes Data collection is on-going, but will be completed by May 2008. Data analysis will be conducted over the summer in order to determine how various types of out-of-school play (constructive play, dramatic play, active play, etc.) and social arrangements during play (play with parents, siblings, peers, etc.) predict academic, social, emotional and creativity outcomes in school. Presentation format and expected outcomes Results will be presented in poster format. Anticipated findings will be interpreted in light of curriculum theory that focuses on children’s development and the implications of out-of-school play and learning for elementary school classrooms.

References

Ben-Arieh, A. & Ofir, A. (2002). Time for (more) time-use studies: Studying the daily activities of children. Childhood, 9(2), 225-248. Bredekamp, S. & Copple, C. (Eds.) (1997). Developmentally appropriate practice in early childhood programs (revised edition). Washington, D.C.: National Association for the Education of Young Children. Ginsburg, K.R. (2007). The importance of play in promoting healthy child development and maintaining strong parent-child bonds. Pediatrics, 119, 182-191. Hartmannm W. & Rollett, B. (1994). Play: Positive intervention in the elementary school curriuculum. In J. Hellendoorn, R. van der Kooij, & B. Sutton-Smith (Eds.), Play and Intervention, pp. 195-202, Albany: State Univeristy of New York Press. Hofferth, S.L., & Jankuniene, Z. (2001). Life after school: From reading at home to playing sports at school, children's after-school lives vary according to such factors as gender, age, and parent's education levels. Educational Leadership, 58(7) 19-23. Hofferth, S.L. & Sandberg, J.F. (2001). How American Children Spend Their Time. Journal of Marriage and Family, 63, 295-308. Lareau, A. (2000). Social class and the daily lives of children: A study from the United States. Childhood, 7(2): 155–171. Lehrer, J., Quance, A., Stathopoulos, H., & Petrakos, H. (2007) Where did all the toys go? Play and learning in the early primary classroom. Paper presented at the Canadian Society for Studies in Education Conference. (Saskatoon, SK, May 26-29, 2007). Miller, B., O'Connor, S., & Sirignano, S. (1995). Out-of-School Time: A Study of Children in Three Low-Income Neighborhoods. Child Welfare, 74(6), 1249-1280. Parmar, P. (2000). American and Asian parents’ ethnotheories of play and learning: Effects on home routines and children’s behavior. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Connecticut, United States. Patton, M.M. & Mercer, J. (1996). « Hey! Where’s the Toys?» Play and Literacy in 1st Grade. Childhood Education , 73(1), 10-13. Piaget, J. (1962). Play, dreams and imitation in childhood. New York: W.W. Norton. Reynolds, C.R. & Kamphaus, R.W. (2004). Behaviour Assessment System for Children: Second Edition. Bloomington, MN: Pearson Assessments. Runco, M.A. (1996). The development of children’s creativity. In B. Spodek & O.N. Saracho (Eds.), Handbook of research on the education of young children (2nd ed.), pp. 121-134, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Torrence, E.P. (1981). Thinking creatively in action and movement. Bensenville, IL: Scholastic Testing Service. Tsao, L.L. (2002). How much do we know about the importance of play in child development? Review of research. Childhood Education, 78(4), 230-233. Tudge, J., Tammeveski, P., Meltsas, M., Kulakova, N. & Snezhkova, I. (2001). The effects of young children’s daily activities: A longitudinal study in the United States, Russia, and Estonia. Expanded version of a poster presentation at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development (Minneapolis, MN, April 19-21, 2001). Yeom, J.S. (1998). Children’s transition experiences from kindergarten to grade one. Canadian Children, 23(1), 25-33.

Author Information

Joanne Shari Lehrer

Concordia University

Education

Montreal

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