Age and gender differences in dyadic play among preschoolers in Hong Kong

Abstract

The value of play in promoting children’s learning and development has been widely acknowledged by early childhood educators in various cultures, but seldom has play been examined as a developmental phenomenon in non-Western cultural contexts. As a result, non-Western early childhood stakeholders’ understanding of play has been largely informed by Western theories of play development. To address this literature gap, the current thesis empirically investigates the developmental patterns of play in Hong Kong preschoolers. Altogether, 178 preschoolers from all the four grade levels (nursery, K1, K2 and K3) were randomly selected from 11 local voucher-eligible non-profit-making kindergartens. These preschoolers were matched based on their grade level and gender to form play dyads, and were invited to participate in a 30-minute semi-structured free play session. By using the modified Play Observation Scale (POS) (Rubin, 2001) as the observational instrument, a quantitative method of time sampling was adopted to observe videotaped dyadic free play episodes of Hong Kong preschoolers. Transition as a non-play behavior was found to be the most common behavior observed during play in Hong Kong preschoolers of all genders and almost all age groups. When only play behaviors are taken into account, Hong Kong nursery children were solitary constructive players, while K1, K2 and K3 children were all parallel dramatic players. Hong Kong boys and dyads with boys spent most of their time on parallel constructive play, while Hong Kong girls and dyads with only girls spent most of their time on parallel dramatic play. Regression and MANOVA analyses revealed significant age differences in all broad play types and all play subtypes except games-with-rules. Significant age differences could also be seen in 7 out of 14 non-play behaviors, namely transition, uncodable behavior, unoccupied behavior and solitary exploration, group exploration, conversation with peer and aggressive behavior. MANOVA analysis also revealed significant gender differences but in a relatively small number of play and non-play behaviors. For play, gender difference was only found in solitary functional, solitary constructive, parallel functional, parallel dramatic and group dramatic play, as well as all broad play types except parallel play. For non-play behaviors, only transition displayed significant gender difference. These findings have four implications. First, when compared with gender, the frequency of play is more sensitive to children’s age. Second, non-play behaviors are common behaviors observed during play and thus deserve further investigation on their developmental patterns and relationship with different aspects of child development. Third, the age patterns of play and non-play behaviors in this thesis share higher similarity with those reported in past studies, compared to the gender pattern which is less similar to those reported in past studies and thus appears to be more unique to the early childhood context in Hong Kong. Fourth, the preschoolers’ play environment, for instance, research setting, toys available and level of adult intervention, appears to pose the most immediate influence on children’s developmental patterns of play. All these reveal the indirect influence of culture on the developmental patterns of play and non-play behaviors observed in preschool-aged children.