Supportive indoor environments for functional play in ECEC institutions: a strategy for promoting well-being and physical activity?

Ole Johan Sando,Ingar Mehus

doi:10.1080/03004430.2019.1651305

Abstract

ABSTRACT The physical environment in Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) institutions provide children with possibilities for play. This study describes a physical environmental intervention aiming to increase the possibilities for functional play in the indoor environment, and its influence on children’s well-being and physical activity. The intervention involved the establishment of a tumbling space with soft surfaces, mats and big construction materials. The sample consists of video observations of 65 children’s free play in seven ECEC institutions at two data points. Multilevel regression analysis indicates that children’s physical activity and functional play is strongly related to the use of a tumbling space, and that the intervention group had a higher increase in functional play following the intervention compared to the control group. The impact of the tumbling space on well-being is limited. The results indicate that targeting children’s possibilities for functional play may be beneficial form a health promotion standpoint.

Highlights

Most children aged 3–5 years in the Western world attend early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions (OECD, 2018), making ECEC intuitions an important arena for public health promotion
Previous studies have found boys to be more physically active than girls (Tonge et al, 2016). In light of this finding, one could hypothesize that boys would utilize the tumbling space for physical activity and functional play to a larger degree than girls, but this was not the case in the present sample. These results show that there are no differences between boys and girls in how much the tumbling space is used or how this space influences their well-being, physical activity and functional play
The results in this study indicated that physical activity could be expected to be 0.9 higher on the OSRAC-P scale and the amount of functional play to be 37% higher when children are in the tumbling space for the entire observation

Summary

Introduction

Most children aged 3–5 years in the Western world attend early childhood education and care (ECEC) institutions (OECD, 2018), making ECEC intuitions an important arena for public health promotion. What type of ECEC institution children attend is found to be a strong predictor for children’s physical activity and to account for about 40% of the variance in physical activity while in child care (Finn, Johannsen, & Specker, 2002; Pate, Pfeiffer, Trost, Ziegler, & Dowda, 2004). Structural differences between institutions in outdoor time and how much time children are able to engage in free play are possible explanations for the significant impact of the institution on children’s physical activity (Pate et al, 2004). The association between time to engage in free play and physical activity may be explained by the fact that much of children’s play behaviours involve physical activity, and that the achievement of fine and gross motor mastery in early years facilitates active play types (Johnson, 2006). Children’s possibilities for free play may be linked to well-being as children can experience enjoyment and positive feelings, flow and engagement, belonging and

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion