Abstract
BackgroundGIS (Geographic Information Systems) based behavior maps are useful for visualizing and analyzing how children utilize their play spaces. However, a GIS needs accurate locational information to ensure that observations are correctly represented on the layout maps of play spaces. The most commonly used tools for observing and coding free play among children in indoor play spaces require that locational data be collected alongside other play variables. There is a need for a practical, cost-effective approach for extending most tools for analyzing free play by adding geospatial locational information to children’s behavior data collected in indoor play environments.ResultsWe provide a non-intrusive approach to adding locational information to behavior data acquired from video recordings of preschool children in their indoor play spaces. The gridding technique showed to be a cost-effective method of gathering locational information about children from video recordings of their indoor physical activities and social behaviors. Visualizing the proportions of categories and observed intervals was done using bubble pie charts which allowed for the merging of multiple categorical information on one map. The addition of locational information to other play activity and social behavior data presented the opportunity to assess what types of equipment or play areas may encourage different physical activities and social behaviors among preschool children.ConclusionsGridding is an effective method for providing locational data when analyzing physical activities and social behaviors of preschool children in indoor spaces. It is also reproducible for most GIS behavior mapping focusing on indoor environments. This bypasses the need to have positioning devices attached to children during observations, which can raise ethical considerations regarding children’s privacy and methodological implications with children playing less naturally. It also supports visualizations on behavior maps making them easier to interpret.
Highlights
GIS (Geographic Information Systems) based behavior maps are useful for visualizing and analyzing how children utilize their play spaces
Creating a GIS (Geographic Information System) of physical activities and social behaviors underpins the correct positioning of observed behaviors and activities and their visualization on a behavior map
Our results showed that associative play was the main social behavior that occurred around the grocery till
Summary
GIS (Geographic Information Systems) based behavior maps are useful for visualizing and analyzing how children utilize their play spaces. Free play encourages children to be self-driven in play using their own imagination in unregulated play while developing social behaviours and physical literacy levels that influence their long-term health [1, 2]. Features of these play spaces, such as the types of play equipment available and size, have been linked to increased physical. GIS is an effective tool for acquiring or creating locational data, storing, and linking such data with observational data (such as that for physical activities and social behaviors) It has been applied in several fields, including public health and community medicine, to effectively combine and analyze vast data collected geospatially [9,10,11,12]. GIS-based behavior maps can show how frequently an activity occurred at a location and how other activities relate to it in time and space [7]
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