THE EFFECTS OF PLAY EQUIPMENT COMPLEXITY ON THE MOTOR AND SOCIAL BEHAVIORS OF PRESCHOOL CHILDREN

The purpose of this study was to examine the effect of manipulating play equipment complexity on the motor and social activity of preschool children. Forty four- and five-year-old children were selected from two day care schools in the University of Northern Iowa school system. The 40 children were randomly assigned to one of 10 groups of four children each, and exposed to both Environment A (two single ladders; less complex) and Environment B (one double ladder; more complex) for four 10 minute sessions per environment. All children were free to play in all environments with repeated exposures. The exposures were counterbalanced by exposing one-half of the children to Environment A for the first exposure, and the other half of the children to Environment B for the first exposure. Rotation of the remaining seven exposures continued based on the beginning exposure. The total amount of free motor play, social (verbal) communication, and motor-social interaction was recorded in seconds from video-audio tapes and live observers on each child for each 10 minute session on a total of 11 variables per session for eight sessions. The motor, social, and motor-social activity data collected were statistically analyzed using two separate four-factor factorial ANOVA with repeated measures and one three-factor factorial ANOVA with repeated measures.;It was hypothesized that there would be differences in the amount of motor and social activity evidenced over time in a play environment by four- and five-year-old children when the play environment contained two single ladders (less functionally complex; Environment A) as opposed to a double ladder (more functionally complex; Environment B). Results indicated that there were no significant differences in the amount of motor, social, and motor-social activity in Environment B as opposed to Environment A. Yet, the one double ladder (more functionally complex) in Environment B was preferred significantly more than the two single ladders (less functionally complex) in Environment A in motor activity and motor-social activity by the children over all days of the study.