Teachers’ Perceptions about the Use of Play to Facilitate Development and Teach Prosocial Skills

doi:10.4236/ce.2011.21006

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Creative Education

2011. Vol. 2, No. 1, 41-46

Teachers’ Perceptions about the Use of Play to Facilitate

Development and Teach Prosocial Skills

Michelle Haney, Victor Bissonnette

Berry College, Mount Berry, USA.

Email: [email protected]

Received January 5th, 2011; revised February 21st, 2011; accepted February 24th, 2011.

The purpose of this study was to investigate teachers’ perceptions about the use of play to promote social, emo-

tional, and cognitive skills to support planning for a school program aimed at increasing inclusive pl a y for young

children. This research was inspired by Vivian Gussin Paley’s book, You Can’t Say You Can’t Play (1992). Par-

ticipants included undergraduate students and graduate education students in the Teacher Education Program at

a small liberal arts college, as well as practicing elementary school teachers. The results indicated that graduate

students and practicing teachers had a more accurate understanding about the developmental benefits of incor-

porating play into the classroom and a greater willingness to embrace the “you can’t say you can’t play” rule to

promote inclusive play and acceptance. Implications for designing a preventative program for inclusive play in

young children are discussed.

Keywords: Children, Play, Inclusion

Introduction

Play is an important experience for children. Young children

recognize social play as essential for connecting to their peers.

Social play opportunities promote social competence in a vari-

ety of ways including strengthening skills such as sharing, per-

spective taking, and negotiating. Social play opportunities also

enhance conflict resolution skills and enrich self concept (Frost,

Wortham, & Reifel, 2001). In addition, emotional development

is supported as children develop self-esteem through play by

becoming more skilled with regulation of affect and learning to

identify emotional states of others (Grolnick & Slowiaczek,

1994; Lindsey & Colwell, 2003; Normandeau & Guay, 1998).

Through conflicts and resolutions embedded in social play,

children learn to handle internal and external conflicts in an

appropriate manner. Furthermore, play has the potential to

strengthen empathy and sensitivity towards others through per-

spective taking. As children gain experience imagining what

others are thinking and feeling, they become more skilled in

expressing empathy and compassion towards others (Frost,

Wortham, & Reifel, 2001).

Developmental theorists Piaget and Vygotsky provide frame-

works for considering the cognitive implications of play for

development. While Piaget describes play as practice for

strengthening of skills and existing schema (i.e., assimilation),

Vygotsky ascribes a more central role of play as a mechanism

for building cognitive structures, such as symbolic representa-

tion. Building upon these theories, there are many ways in

which engaging in play facilitates the development of cognitive

skills. For instance, through fantasy play children begin using

symbols. Symbolic representation is the fundamental cognitive

skill underlying literacy, writing, mathematics, and other com-

plex skills essential for functioning in modern cultures.

Through social play, particularly fantasy play, children develop

theory of mind, the understanding that others experience unique

thoughts (Astington & Jenkins, 1995; Watson, Linkie-Nixon,

Wilson, & Capage, 1999). Contemporary researchers have ex-

tended these theoretical considerations to address the role of

play in literacy development (Owocki, 1999; Roskos & Neu-

man, 1998), attachment to caregivers Kerns & Barth , 1995;

Schiffman, 2003), social competence in a variety of settings

(Connolly & Doyle, 1984), and assessment of functioning

(Casby, 2003). Furthermore, when children demonstrate proso-

cial inclusive behaviors, classrooms become environments

conducive to overall learning (Wentzel, 1991).

Although teachers seem to acknowledge the role of play in

developing skills, they seem unsure of how to utilize play in an

instructional manner (Saracho & Spodek, 1998). Despite a

plethora of research suggesting positive outcomes associated

with opportunities to engage in social play and negative out-

comes associated with peer rejection, there is often a hands-off

policy during recess and free-play time in school. Teachers tend

to underestimate the prevalence of bullying and do not appear

to recognize their potential role as preventing violence and

promoting prosocial skill development (Rodkin & Hodges,

2003). When teachers do attempt to implement strategies sup-

porting friendships among children in their classrooms, often

indirect strategies such as providing free time for play, allowing

children to choose with whom they would like to play, and

making informal comment on the play between friends are used

(Buysee, Goldman, & Skinner, 2003). Overall, there appears

lacking a curriculum or integrated strategy to weave teaching of

prosocial interactions into the entire school day.

A promising approach to promoting prosocial skill develop-

ment involves directly addressing skills promoting mutual ac-

ceptance and respect within a natural context. An example of

this approach is the “You can’t say you can’t play” rule origi-

nated by veteran kindergarten teacher, Vivian Gussin Paley

(1992). The “You can’t say you can’t play” strategy embraces a

philosophy different from traditional intervention techniques

M. HANEY

which are often based on a medical model of fixing the deficit

(Zakriski, Jacobs, & Coie, 1997). In the case of a lonely and

withdrawn child, a deficit based intervention might identify and

remediate difficulties with the child’s social skills. Thus, the

responsibility for inclusion and acceptance is put on the re-

jected child rather than on the social community in which the

child functions. In contrast to the medical model, Paley ’s “You

can’t say you can’t play” strategy reframes the problem using a

social-ecological approach targeting the entire classroom com-

munity. No longer does the problem belong solely to the re-

jected child. Instead, the entire classroom, children and teacher,

must work together to directly address the complex issues sur-

rounding inclusion and tolerance.

Bronfenbrenner’s (1979) ecological systems theory captures

the central goals of the “You can’t say” strategy. In a review of

the literature on bullying and victimization, Espelage and

Swearer (2003) advocate for interventions utilizing Brofen-

brenner’s theoretical framework in which individual factors are

considered within multiple contexts of environmental factors

that influence and are influenced by one another. However,

there exist few empirically validated studies on class-wide so-

cial intervention programs (Brown, Odom, & Conroy, 2001).

A handful of studies exist in which Paley’s rule is imple-

mented and evaluated. Sapon-Shevin (1998) explored imple-

mentation of the “You can’t say you can’t play” rule in four

different classrooms, including kindergarten, first, second, and

fourth grade classes. Anecdotal teacher reports of the effec-

tiveness and ease of implementation in their respective class-

rooms were quite positive. Adopting a more quantitative ap-

proach, Harrist and Bradley (2003) identified six kindergarten

classes to implement the strategy over the course of the year.

Pre and posttest data were collected via sociometric interviews,

teacher report, and children self-report within six target and

four control classrooms representing three different schools.

Students in the target classrooms reported enjoying playing

with each other significantly more than before the intervention

(based on sociometric status), with a moderate effect size. The

authors suggested that more time may be needed to implement

the rule in order to detect behavioral effects on student interac-

tions. Another possible limitation to this study was that the

rule was implemented, not by the classroom teacher, but by a

research assistant who visited the class on a weekly basis. In

fact, Harrist and Bradley (2003) recommended that future re-

search assess teacher’s commitment to implementing the rule

(treatment fidelity). They noted that only limited anecdotal

information was obtained regarding teacher attitude about the

rule and their commitment to implementation. Such informa-

tion would be useful to teacher training and evaluation of valid

outcomes. Although not routinely incorporated into interven-

tion programs, failure of teachers to commit to comprehensive

implementation of intervention strategies can negatively impact

treatment effectiveness (Detrich, 1999; Gable, Henrickson, &

Van Acker, 2001).

Paley’s (1992) and Sapon-Shevin’s (1998) qualitative find-

ings and results of the more quantitative study by Harrist and

Bradley (2003) describe positive outcomes associated with

implementation of the rule. However, in these cases participat-

ing teachers and administrators were selected because of their

interest in exploring ways of promoting inclusive play and

prosocial behavior in their classrooms. Optimally, implementa-

tion of the “You can’t say you can’t play” rule would occur on

a school or system-wide basis rather than within a patchwork of

classes. There are several noteworthy benefits of a systemic

approach to prevention-intervention programs. School-wide

implementation of prevention and intervention strategies allow

for the creation of caring communities (Battistich, Solomon,

Watson, & Schaps, 1997) in which skills can be generalized

and supported across settings. Reframing schools as caring

communities results in numerous positive outcomes for stu-

dents and teachers (Battistich et al., 1997; McNeeley, None-

maker, & Blum, 2002).

A system or school wide approach to implementing the “You

can’t say you can’t play rule” involves recruiting all teachers

regardless of their previous beliefs about play, teaching experi-

ences, or attitudes about intervening in a dimension of student

school experience traditionally considered outside the curricu-

lum. In an effort to inform the creation of a comprehension

training program that supports treatment fidelity, the current

study was designed to investigate questions regarding percep-

tions of teachers that may impact their effectiveness in imple-

menting the “You can’t say you can’t play” rule. Specifically,

the following questions were addressed:

1) To what extent do teachers believe that strategies promot-

ing inclusive social play are useful in facilitating social, emo-

tional, and cognitive development?

2) Is teaching experience associated with an increased aware-

ness of the significance of inclusive social play opportunities in

promoting development?

3) Are teachers willi n g t o i mplement the play strategy?

4) What factors are associated with a teachers’ willingness to

implement the play strategy?

5) Are there trends in perceptions about play and about im-

plementation the play strategy that might be beneficial for fu-

ture training purposes?

Method

Participants

One hundred seventeen (87 female and 8 male) participants

were recruited from graduate and undergraduate education

classes at a private liberal arts college in northwest Georgia.

Thirty seven undergraduate participants were either education

majors or minors in their sophomore or junior year. Thirty nine

graduate students were all enrolled in the graduate education

program. In addition, 16 participants were recruited from

teaching faculty employed by two separate elementary schools

within the same vicinity (one private and one public). Forty of

the participants had at least one year of teaching experience,

whereas, 55 had no teaching experience. Volunteers were

treated in accordance with the “Ethical Principles of Psycholo-

gists and Code of Conduct” (American Psychological Associa-

tion, 2002).

Materials

Participants completed questionnaires in typical college

classrooms. The first part of this questionnaire asked them for

demographic information, including: gender, age, education

level, teaching experience, and area of teaching specialization.

Next, the questionnaire explained, “Pretend that there is a new

M. HANEY 43

rule in your classroom stating that no child can be rejected from

play by their peers. This rule would be called ‘You can’t say

you can’t play.’ We are interested in your perceptions of such a

rule.” The participants were instructed to respond to 7 items

(the items are presented in Table 1). The first three items assess

the perceived importance of play to the cognitive, social and

emotional development of children. The remaining four items

assess the perceived feasibility and desirability of the “You

can’t say…” rule, and the individual’s willingness to implement

the rule in her or his classroom. Each item was followed by a

5-point Likert response scale (e.g., 1 = definitely not important

to 5 = very important). Two additional open-ended items were

used to solicit additional comments about the rule.

Results

Psychomet ric Proper ties of the Survey

Descriptive statistics for each survey item, along with the

correlations between each pair of survey items have been pre-

sented in Table 1. Most of the inter-item correlations were

positive and significant. Overall, the 7 survey items demon-

strated a good level of internal consistency (Alpha = .80).

When the survey item responses were submitted to a Principle

Components factor analysis with oblique rotation, the results

revealed two factors. The first factor (Eigenvalue = 3.20) in-

cluded the last four items of the survey and might be termed,

“Rule Feasibility.” The second factor (Eigenvalue = 1.58) in-

cluded the first three items and might be termed, “Rule Impor-

tance.” These two factors were only modestly correlated (r

= .21). Thus, one’s overall perception of how feasible it would

be to implement the “You can’t say you can’t play” rule is rela-

tively independent of how important they feel that play is for a

child’s cognitive, emotional, and social development.

Survey Results Relative to Teaching Experience

We correlated the seven individual survey item responses

with the number of years that the participant has taught their

own classes. The results revealed that the number of years

taught was significantly and positively correlated with one’s

perception of how important play is for cognitive development

(r = .24, p < .05), and with one’s perception of how well the

rule for play would work (r = .22, p < .01). Thus, there appears

to be a modest relationship between one’s level of teaching

experience and one’s perception of play being important for the

cognitive development of the child and one’s perception of how

feasible it would be to encourage more play with this rule.

Survey Results Relative to Teacher Education Level

The first three items of the survey –those involving the per-

ceived importance of play to the cognitive, social, and emo-

tional development of the child—were submitted to a

mixed-model Analysis of Variance, where the three items rep-

resented a within-subjects factor, and student level (under-

graduates vs. graduate students and certified teachers) repre-

sented a between-subjects factor. The cell means for this analy-

sis are depicted in Figure 1. The results revealed a highly sig-

nificant main effect for item topic, F (2, 174) = 20.19, p < .01.

Participants perceived play to be more important for the social

development of the child (M = 4.89) than for the cognitive and

emotional development of the child (M = 4.60 and 4.63, re-

spectively). The results also revealed a significant interaction

between the participant’s student level and the area of devel-

opment being considered, F (2, 174) = 6.89, p < .05). Graduate

students and certified teachers perceived play to be significantly

more important for a child’s cognitive development than did

undergraduate students, t (87) = 2.66, p < .05. There was no

significant main effect for student level.

Discussion

One of the primary goals of this study was to investigate the

extent to which teachers and future teachers believe that strate-

gies promoting inclusive social play are useful in facilitating

social, emotional, and cognitive development. Our participants

believed that play is relatively important for all three domains

of development (i.e., their responses were typically above the

midpoint of the response scale). This orientation would cer-

tainly seem to facilitate the introduction of the “You can’t say

you can’t play” rule. However, our participants rated play ex-

periences as significantly more important for social, than for

cognitive or emotional development, suggesting some note-

worthy gaps in their knowledge of the literature linking play

experiences and multiple facets of development. Further, these

findings suggest that teachers might be less likely to take ad-

vantage of naturally occurring situations or to construct learn-

ing opportunities where play can facilitate cognitive or emo-

tional development.

Table 1.

Descriptive Statistics and Correlations

Survey Item Mean (SD) 2 3 4 5 6 7

1. How important do you feel play is to

the developm ent of cognitive skills in children? 4.60 (.52) .27* .51* .24* .15 .22* .14

2. How important do you feel play is to the

development of social skills in children? 4.89 (.32) .41* –.01 .08 –.05 .14

3. How important do you feel play is to the

development of emotional skills in children? 4.63 (.55) .32* .28* .21* .19

4. Do you think this rule “You Can’t

Say You Can’t Play” would work? 3.17 (.77) .70* .57* .62*

5. Would you be willing to implement

this rule in your classroom? 3.60 (.94) .56* .75*

6. How well do you think children

will follow th is rule? 3.17 (.86) .61*

7. Do you personally like this rule? 3.51 (1.1)

Note: * p < .05.

M. HANEY

4.1

4.2

4.3

4.4

4.5

4.6

4.7

4.8

4.9

CognitiveSocial Emotional

Area of Development

Importance

Undergraduate StudentsGraduate Students and Certified Teachers

Figure 1.

Mean importance ratin g as a function of area of development.

Our second question focused on the association between

teaching experience and an increased awareness of the signifi-

cance of inclusive social play in promoting development. Our

results revealed that greater levels of teacher education and

teaching experience were associated with an increased aware-

ness of the significance of play for the development of cogni-

tive skills. These results suggest that greater teacher education

and classroom experience may provide a valuable increase in

the teachers’ knowledge about how children develop and how

play experiences can affect that development.

These findings raise a question critical to teacher training

and intervention planning. Why are those with more teaching

experience or advanced course work better informed about the

contributions of play to cognitive development? Conventional

wisdom suggests that experiences with play build social skills,

and all of our participants strongly endorsed this belief.

However, research also asserts the many benefits of play to

cognitive development. One reason may be that undergraduate

students are less likely than graduate students to learn about the

relationship between play and development in their course work.

For instance, several different faculty members teach the un-

dergraduate course on child development in our college, and

likely not all child development courses address the relationship

between play and development to the same degree. The differ-

ence in responses we observed between undergraduates and

more experienced students and teachers may also be explained

by different opportunities for constructivist learning.

Constructivist learning allows for individuals to build their own

knowledge, often resulting in enhanced memory and deeper

learning (Sternberg & Williams, 2002). Thus, it may not be

enough to read about the relationship between play and devel-

opment in an undergraduate education or psychology text book.

Context rich experiences such as independent projects associ-

ated with advanced coursework or continuing education, and

real-life teaching experiences allow teachers to construct

knowledge for themselves. With experience, the relationship

between play and development may become salient and more

likely to be represented in the teacher’s beliefs and practices.

Our third research question considered the willingness of

teachers to implement the preventative play strategy. Although

participants indicated that play was important for optimal

childhood development, ratings were luke-warm (ranged from

possibly would to would) with respect to their willingness to

implement a strategy designed to increase play opportunities. A

moderately high correlation between willingness to implement

the rule and expectations of children following the rule suggests

that concerns about behavior management and compliance are

important issues to address throughout training and implemen-

tation of this strategy.

It is likely that the current emphasis on high stakes testing

and student performance outcomes may also impact teacher

willingness to implement classroom experiences that promote

inclusive play and teach prosocial behaviors. High stakes test-

ing, stimulated by the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legisla-

tion, rewards a didactic approach to teaching academic curricu-

lum (Booher-Jennings, 2006). A focus on academic content at

the expense of authentic learning opportunities that promote

creativity and critical thinking is especially problematic when

implemented in ea rly education classrooms (Bagnato & YenHo,

2006). Young children vary in developmental attainment of

emerging academic skills, and benefit from opportunities to

explore, create, and investigate through play (Hirsh-Pasek et al.,

n.d.). However, teachers, administrators, and entire school sys-

tems are increasingly penalized when children fail to obtain

cut-off scores on standardized norm referenced tests of aca-

demic achievement.

An informal analysis of the open-ended question “If you

could change one aspect of the rule, what would it be?” and

“Please note any comments that you may have.” revealed some

themes that address reasons for personally liking or disliking

M. HANEY 45

the rule. Three main themes emerged. Firstly, participants ex-

pressed concern that the rule took away a student’s right to

chose their own friends. Further, it was sometimes noted that

by taking away a fundamental freedom of choice schools would

be inadvertently encouraging conformity. Those who expressed

this concern did so in a manner suggesting that conformity was

an undesirable trait when associated with social functioning.

Another common theme involved the normality of rejection

throughout the course of one’s life. These participants sug-

gested that early school experiences in being rejected from

one’s peers somehow sensitized children to the routine experi-

ences of rejection they were destined to endure throughout their

lives. It is noteworthy that current developmental and social

psychological research demonstrates an almost universal ten-

dency for social rejection to diminish one’s self-esteem. Con-

trasting these societal norms with scientific research results

would likely lead to thought provoking and important discus-

sion. Thirdly, many participants suggested that as teachers they

simply do not have the time or energy to spend teaching chil-

dren prosocial skills related to inclusive play. Paley (1992)

noted concerns similar to those expressed by our participants in

her description of teacher reactions to the rule.

Ultimately, the lowest ratings occurred in response to the

question “How well do you think children will follow the

rule?” Thus, although teachers and those in teacher training

programs may feel play is important to development and may

even be willing to implement the rule, there are concerns about

students complying with the rule. This finding indicates that a

significant part of training and program planning must involve

ongoing discussions and strategies to address issues related to

student compliance. For instance, useful strategies may include

journals, role playing, and class meetings infused into class-

room activities.

The factor analysis revealed that training teachers to imple-

ment the “you can’t say you can’t play” rule must address two

distinctly different issues. In preparing teachers to implement

this program, it is critical that the significant role that inclusive

play has in enhancing social, emotional and cognitive devel-

opment be clearly communicated (the “Rule Importance” fac-

tor). In addition, the program must involve training and

on-going support to increase acceptance and perceive feasibility

of the “you can’t say you can’t play” rule (the “Rule Feasibil-

ity” factor). Specifically, teachers are likely to benefit from

training opportunities (e.g. via case studies, video vignettes,

modeling, observations) related to introducing the rule to stu-

dents, supporting students in understanding and practicing the

rule, dealing with problems that emerge as students struggle

with inclusive play, and assessing the progress of the program.

Overall, it is hoped that this research will stimulate optimism

about the effectiveness of strategies that teach prosocial skills

and empower teachers to feel competent integrating these skills

into the curriculum. A preventative approach that integrates

pro-social learning opportunities into daily school experiences

affords children the potential to maximize their learning ex-

perience at school and generalize these pro-social skills to

strengthen their social communities throughout their lives.

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