Examining the relationship between teachers' attitudes toward risky play and children's motor creativity skills

Abstract

This study aimed to reveal the relationship between teachers' perceptions of risky play and children's motor creativity skills. To achieve this objective, the study group constituted of 537 children (48–60-month-old) enrolled in the preschools and the Directorate of National Education-affiliated primary schools in Afyonkarahisar province and 45 teachers training these children in the 2022-2023 academic year. As measurement scales, the study utilized the "Thinking Creatively in Action and Movement (TCAM)" test developed by Torrance (1981) and adapted into Turkish by Karaca and Aral (2017) and the "Scale for the Attitudes towards Risky Play in Early Childhood (SATRPEC)-Teacher Form (TF)" developed by Karaca and Uzun (2020). In this study, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), a quantitative research method, has been employed. Study's findings indicate that as teachers' attitudes towards discerning risky play behaviors in children improve, there is a corresponding increase in children's motor creativity scores in fluency and originality. This study also determined that the teachers' attitudes towards risky play, including their belief in its necessity, discernment of risky behaviors, tolerance towards risky behaviors, and anxiety about such behaviors, did not significantly impact the imagination aspect of children's motor creativity.