Child Playground Behavior
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation
Date
Child Playground Behavior
Several studies have looked at the connection among social environment, children’s physical activities, and outdoor play in playgrounds. Observational research aimed to explore the relationship between children’s social and physical activities. The observation occurred in their playgrounds in the local community (Massey et al., 2018). The physical activities, outdoor play, and social environment were measured using play observation and leisure activities.
Physical and playing activities are important for children’s development since they enable physical, social motor, emotional, and cognitive development. Children’s outdoor physical activities are very crucial (Massey et al., 2018). However, research has shown that children worldwide are not meeting the physical requirements, and their active outdoor activities have gradually decreased. Additionally, recent years have seen limited independent mobility and freedom of movement of the children due to parental concerns about stranger dangers and road safety. Thus, it’s essential to have an observational study to determine how young girls and boys behave when it comes to their play behaviors and physical activities.
In the study, I would be an unacknowledged observer. This is because it would enable one to infiltrate the setting being observed without the participants knowing they are being observed. This would allow a person to get intimate information since individuals would not change their behaviors when one is around (Mayfield et al., 2017). This would ensure that one does not actively participate in the activities, thus ensuring that they observe every specific detail without a miss.
In the coding, there are several behaviors or activities that one should observe. The target group’s physical activity levels were recorded, their lying, standing, and sitting behavior. Their walking, crawling, jumping, climbing, and running behaviors were also observed. The children engaged in vigorous activities were to be defined from a moderate level to a vigorous level. Children would also be observed how they participated in certain playground games depending on gender and which gender was most active would also be observed. Besides that, the verbal and non-verbal children’s interaction behavior would also be observed.
References
Massey, W. V., Ku, B., & Stellino, M. B. (2018). Observations of playground play during elementary school recess. BMC research notes, 11(1), 755.
Mayfield, C. A., Child, S., Weaver, R. G., Zarrett, N., Beets, M. W., & Moore, J. B. (2017). Effectiveness of a playground intervention for antisocial, prosocial, and physical activity behaviors. Journal of school health, 87(5), 338-345.