Investigation of the suitability of playgrounds in shopping centers to children's development areas: The case of Çankırı province

Play is an activity that combines fun and education in childhood. In addition to creating happy moments in children, games also support the establishment of friendships and their ability to maintain these relationships. The subject of study is the evaluation of children's game choices, creativity, cultural elements in the game, positive and negative achievements transferred through the game, and the appropriateness of all these for the developmental period of the children in the playgrounds in the shopping centers. The aim of this study is to reveal the suitability of playgrounds for age characteristics. While the main universe of the research is the playgrounds in the shopping centers in Turkey, the working group is the playgrounds in the shopping centers in the center of Çankırı. Since the shopping malls in Çankırı are accessible, the universe of the research also constitutes the study group. The data collection tool used in the study was developed by the researcher and consists of two parts. While the first part includes general information about the playground, the second part examines the scope of the games. Qualitative research method was used in the research and the data were evaluated with descriptive analysis. Descriptive analysis includes summarizing and interpreting the data obtained by various data collection techniques according to predetermined themes (Yıldırım & Şimşek, 2018). As a result of the research, it was seen that the materials in the two playgrounds in Çankırı supported cognitive development, physical development, muscle motor development, social development, language development, and affective development.