The Effect of Physical Play Experiences on Early Childhood Non-Cognitive Skills Development

Yuko Suzuki
Additional contact information
Yuko Suzuki: Aichi University of Education

Journal of Education and Development, 2020, vol. 4, issue 3, 54-72

Abstract: This study aimed to verify the hypothesis that the acquisition of non-cognitive skills is affected by physical play experiences in early childhood. Research reports from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development state that the development of non-cognitive skills is affected by factors such as the quality of care and play experiences in early childhood. However, there is insufficient evidence regarding this hypothesis. To provide concrete evidence on how non-cognitive skills develop, this cross-sectional retrospective study was conducted. First, a questionnaire survey was conducted with university students and structural equation modeling was used to study the effect physical play experiences in early childhood had on non-cognitive skills in university, as represented by the Big Five personality traits. Second, to examine the perceived benefits of physical play experiences, participants were asked to write freely about their autobiographical memories of physical play experiences in early childhood. The narratives were visualized through co-occurring network analyses with text mining using KH Coder. The results showed a correlation between sufficiently rich physical play experiences in early childhood and the adult personality trait of attachment. Additionally, a correlation between personality traits and the quantity and quality of the subjective benefits of physical play experiences was observed. These findings imply the importance of physical play experiences during early childhood as the determinants of the development of non-cognitive skills.

Keywords: non-cognitive skills; physical play in early childhood; structural equation modeling; co-occurrence network analysis in text mining (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I21 I24 J13 Z13 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journal.chapjulypress.org/index.php/jed/article/view/2793/1073 (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cxp:jededu:v:4:y:2020:i:3:p:54-72

DOI: 10.20849/jed.v4i3.827

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Journal of Education and Development from Julypress
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ().