Associative Play Observation

Between the months of January and March, the observer was able to spend five days in a Cardiff Nursery to observe, with written consent from the mother, the development of a child. The child in question, who for confidentiality’s sake will be referred to as Neil, was a three-year-old boy who attended the nursery during the morning sessions from 9 o’clock to 11:30. During this time the children were separated into pre-organised groups and rotated around activities run by both the Head of Nursery and two Teaching Assistants; one outdoors, one creative, one writing-based activity and free play. For this study, the observer focused mainly on Neil’s free time in order to determine his development in terms of social relationships and play. In the

interest of obtaining accurate data, the observer acted generally as a non-participant observer so as to minimize their influence over Neil’s behaviour. However, before they were able to obtain consent from Neil’s parents to use him as the participant of this study, the observer took part in the day to day activities as would another Teaching Assistant. This was done in order to gain the trust of the children and to ensure they would not alter their behaviour, as trust is said to be essential between observers and participants when collecting data in both participant and non-participant studies (Cooper, Lewis, & Urquhart, 2004).

Many have tried to define what is and what is not play, generally it is agreed that play is an activity voluntarily undertaken which holds no immediate purpose but that is fun and outside the ordinary (Eberle, 2014) . When discussing a child’s playing habits, it is important to be aware of what different types of play that child should be engaging in, for example, according to Simlansky (1968) a 3 year-old would be engaging in constructive play that involves creativity, manipulation of materials and abstract thinking. Neil was able to demonstrate this type of constructive play when he used the Lego© toys; he was able to successfully parse through the materials to find specific pieces and add them to his construction, while he was doing this he described to one of his peers that he was making a robot. In doing so Neil was able to demonstrate that he was able to think abstractly in order to assign new meaning to the Lego© bricks. This also demonstrates the creativity behind this play as Neil chose to build something different from most other children, who were for the most part simply building towers with the bricks.
Parten (1993) goes even further in to categorise different types of play according how socially interactive and complex they are. The types of play that most nursery age children will be engaging in are on the more complex end of the spectrum, for example; parallel play, associative play and co-operative playing. Parallel playing involves the child engaging in independent play but with the same or similar toys while also being in close proximity to other children. Neil demonstrated parallel play, when in free time he sat on the carpet with several other children and got out the toy cars. During his time playing with the car Neil stayed on the carpet with the other children who were playing with the cars but he did not engage with them or pay attention to them other than to circumvent them when they were in the way of his playing.
Associative play is where the children play together but, as opposed to co-operative play, there is no organisation or form of ruling, co-ordination is less important than the players.

In co-operative play therefore, the interest lies both in the players and the activity itself, the participants are assigned roles and there is a form or organisation. In this observation study, it is more likely that Neil will be engaging for the most part in parallel and associative play as co-operative play requires a level of social maturity and organisational skills that many 3 year olds will not possess. The observer was able to not that Neil participated in associative play slightly more frequently than he did parallel play, for example he sat in the reading corner with one of his peers and they looked through the pictures and turning the pages, though at times it appeared they were moving slightly out of sync; as in Neil would be looking at a picture while the other boy was attempting to move on to the next page. He also demonstrated associative play with multiple children when they were playing with puzzles that had been laid out, working together but again, without organisation as some children snatched puzzle pieces away or took out pieces that had already been correctly

placed.
Neil also showed some evidence of being able to participate in co-operative play, though he did so infrequently and for shorter periods of time than the other forms of play. Neil sat down and began to play a board game at the encouragement of one of the Teaching Assistants (TAs). The game was played with four other children and, after being given instructions on how to play from the TA, the children were able to play with minimal guidance for around five minutes. After this point, one of the children decided to pretend to take the role of the TA and began giving out instructions and deciding who’s turn it was next instead of going around the table as they had been doing. The child who had been pretending to be a TA appeared to be showing favouritism towards certain players, giving them more turns and skipping over other players, and it was at this point that several of the children, including Neil, lost interest and left the table to go back into free play.

The display of favouritism that the child in this last example had shown was highly likely to have been an indication of friendship as children view unequal distribution as a mark of social alliance (Liberman & Shaw, 2017). The links between friendship and play are well known; through joint play, children develop an understanding of other’s feelings and beliefs which encourages the development of empathy, (Youngblade & Dunn, 1995) this empathy is essential in the formation of friendships. Empathy is essential to the development of strong and lasting social bonds, which in turn are thought to be fundamental to the survival of the species (Anderson & Keltner, 2002). The observer was able to see some signs of empathy in Neil towards others in his class, for example he was able to recognise when a boy was being antagonised by another classmate and displayed signs of discomfort at this through pointing and grimacing. Neil then went to inform the closest TA who put a stop to the behaviour, Neil was later seen playing with the aforementioned boy. This recognition of distress and the resulting action he had taken may suggest that Neil was being empathetic towards the other boy as they were friends.
Friendship between two children can be defined as a mutual feeling of appreciation and affection that is persistent and stable (Beazidou & Botsoglou, 2015). The observer was able to note several expression of affection that Neil displayed towards certain other members of his class, for instance, on multiple occasions the observer saw Neil hug one of his fellow classmates, Neil was the first to initiate the hug and his classmate returned the gesture, showing a mutual affection. These occasions were noted on different days, however, they both involved the same individual, indicating that the relationship was both affectionate and persistent. It was also noted by the observer that Neil was hugged by another of his classmates, however on this occasion the hug was not returned by Neil, who grimaced at the action suggesting he was uncomfortable with this display of affection. This may suggest that the relationship was not mutual and therefore would not be considered a friendship according to the definition as suggested by Beazidou and Botsoglou (2015).
Furthermore, the observer recorded that throughout Neil’s social interactions involving expressions of affection and joint play, the majority of situations involved children of the same sex. Indeed, one of the factors effecting social interaction and the construction of friendships, especially at a young age, is sex; children have a propensity to form relationships with others of the same sex (Challman, 1932). Neil, therefore, shows signs of following this trend, as he was frequently observed choosing to associate with other boys than girls as demonstrated by his signs of affection as well as his playing habits.
Another factor that is said to effect the formation of friendships is that of temperament and behaviour. Negative behaviours and unfavourable temperaments displayed by children plays a role in how their peers decide upon whether or not to form friendships. For example, within Neil’s group as chosen by the Head of Nursery for the rotation between activities, a certain individual in that group was often given verbal reprimands from the teachers for misbehaviour such as shouting or not sharing. During the time when Neil’s group were left in free play, Neil did not further associate with this member of his group, instead choosing to play with other children from his own group as well as others who were also in free play. This observation however, may also be influenced by the previous factor as the child in question was a girl, therefore we cannot be certain which factor is the most important. We may however be able to suggest that gender is the more important factor as, in Gleason, Goer and Hohmann’s study they acknowledge that temperament is not one of the most prominent factors influencing a child’s popularity.