The occurrence of pretend play in early childhood education in Romania – an investigative study

Abstract

ABSTRACT At preschool age, it is generally accepted that children’s main pursuit is play. In particular, pretend play has a major role in supporting a preschooler’s learning processes. Early pretend play involves object substitution, before later progressing to the incorporation of invisible objects. The purpose of the presented study was to validate that pretend play contributes significantly to children’s emotional, social, physical and intellectual development and can achieve the skills promoted by The Curriculum for Preschool Education in Romania. A questionnaire-based survey was undertaken, consisting of factual items (age, grade teacher), closed questions with pre-coded answers that were easily quantifiable and open questions that required analysis. The questionnaire was administered to a non-probabilistic sample, consisting of 80 kindergarten educators which were arbitrarily selected from nine kindergartens. The findings support the hypothesis of the advantages of pretend play in relation to The Curriculum for Preschool Education in Romania.