Play Behavior at a Children’s Museum: The Role of Parental Sensitivity and Child Gender

• In Event: Poster Session 09
  In Poster Session: PS 09 Topic - Perceptual, Sensory, Motor

Abstract

Preschool children’s play behavior has many developmental benefits (American Academy of Pediatrics, 2012). Play takes various forms, including object exploration (i.e., investigating and using objects for intended purpose) and imaginative play. Evidence suggests boys engage in more object exploration while girls have higher rates of imaginative play (Prioletta & Pyle, 2017). Different play forms prompt diverse outcomes; object exploration increases causal awareness (Schulz et al., 2008), while imaginative play enhances emotional expression and regulation (Jent et al., 2011). Importantly, parental involvement in children’s play may provide additional benefits to the child (Fiese, 1990). Yet quality of parent involvement varies; an important consideration. Sensitive caregiving attuned to the child’s signals and facilitating their exploration of the environment (Ainsworth et al., 1978) has numerous cognitive (Kopystynska et al., 2016) and social-emotional (Manning, 2019) benefits. However, no known research has examined associations between sensitivity, preschoolers’ play activities, and child gender. The current study, conducted at a children’s museum, addresses this research gap. Notably, the children’s museum is an ideal context for this study because exhibits are designed to facilitate both learning through play and parent-child interaction (Willard et al., 2019).
Fifty-seven parent-preschooler dyads participated in this study. See Table 1 for demographic information. Interactions (15 minutes freeplay; 5 minutes clean-up) were recorded in a river-themed exhibit for later coding. Each dyad was alone in the exhibit and instructed to play as they normally would. Sensitivity was rated by two observers using a modification of the Caregiving Behavior for Preschoolers Q-sort (Posada et al., 1998). Mean inter-rater reliability was .86 (SD = .09). Sensitivity scores (-1.00 to 1.00) were created by averaging observer descriptions and correlating this description with the criterion sort for the ideally sensitive caregiver. Play was coded using an original coding scheme developed for this study. Each interaction was coded for the total time spent in four types of play: Object Exploration, Imaginative Play, Environmental Exploration (e.g., discussing pictures on the walls), and Games with Rules (e.g., card game). Thirty-two percent of videos were double-coded (ICC range: .81 - .99).
Descriptives and correlations are presented in Table 2. Paired t-tests showed that children were more likely to engage in Object Exploration and Imaginative Play compared to other types of play. Similar to past research, girls were also more likely to engage in imaginative play than were boys, r = -.28, p = .04; no gender differences in object exploration were found. Higher levels of sensitivity were associated with longer periods of imaginative play, r = .33, p = .01, and less time spent in games with rules, r = 0.39, p = .003. Sensitivity did not vary by child gender and no interaction between gender and sensitivity was found. Thus, while child gender and sensitivity both help explain various play activities, their contributions are unique. Findings extend previous research on the benefits of parental sensitivity and elucidate specific parenting behaviors promoting imaginative play in the museum context. Potential explanations for variability in results by play type will be addressed.

Authors

• Jennika M Mannesto, University of New Hamsphire
  Presenting Author

• Jill M Trumbell, University of New Hampshire
  Non-Presenting Author

• Kimberly Turner Nesbitt, University of New Hampshire
  Non-Presenting Author

• Jill Thorson, University of New Hampshire
  Non-Presenting Author