The qualitative study of teachers' belief about unstructured free play in inclusive early childhood education classroom

Abstract

Free play is one of the most critical activities in classrooms of early childhood education. This is also true for inclusive classrooms. Under the influence of cognitive psychology, free play in early childhood education has become more structured and play has been regarded as 'for something'. However, we do need to see play 'as it is'. For this purpose, this study explores how teachers perceive unstructured play for children in inclusive classrooms. This study attempts to explore teachers' perception of children's unstructured free play in inclusive early childhood classrooms with a qualitative approach. Unstructured free play in this study was defined as open-ended play time and materials. The data for this study included in-depth interviews with teachers. Collected data were analyzed in a qualitative way. From results, researchers discovered several important aspects of teachers' perceptions regarding unstructured free play such as fear of the unfamiliar, leader in play towards supporter in play, and happy teachers and happy children.