Opinions of preschool teachers on outdoor play area and their outdoor area practices

With the rapid urbanization in the world, the generations that are now growing on the streets are gradually diminishing. Today children spent most of the day at home or in schools and they are becoming addicted to TV, computer, phone, tablet and so on. Outdoor areas have plenty of opportunities to support children's development and their knowledge and attitudes toward nature. In outdoor spaces, the child's gross motor skills are supported while the child is freely jumping and running and also he/she takes advantage of the sunlight on the other hand. At the same time, they have the opportunity to discover plants, bugs, clouds, earth, trees and many other things in the outdoor environment through firsthand experience. Teachers should use outdoor playgrounds more often in order to support children's health and development, give them the opportunity to explore the environment and develop positive attitudes towards nature. Therefore, this study aims to examine the opinions of preschool teachers about using outdoor areas in preschools and their outdoor area practices. The design of this study was explanatory sequential design. An explanatory sequential desing is a mixed method design in which the researcher begins by a quantitative step and then begins to look for explanations on the second step through qualitative methods. The study consisted of two phases. In the first phase, it was aimed to collect quantitative data from teachers working in government preschools. 18 out of 19 government preschools in Eskişehir during the 2016-2017 academic year was included in the first phase. One of the preschools was not included in the research since it had no outdoor playground. In the first phase of the study, the data was collected from 196 preschool teachers working in the 18 preschools through a survey "the Outdoor Areas and Outdoor Area Practices -Teacher Form" which was developed by the researchers using the literature review. Descriptive statistics (frequency, percentage, arithmetic mean tables) obtained from the Likert-type questionnaire is given the results. The sample of the second phase of the study was selected using the survey results to provide maximum diversity. Nine teachers were selected from the first phase participants: 3 with the most positive view, 3 with medium view and 3 with the most negative view about outdoor area activities. Nine teachers were interviewed using a semi-structured interview form. In the second phase, the data were coded and themes and subthemes were created. As a result of the research, it was seen that even if the teachers believe in the importance of outdoor play they were insufficient in the practice. Only 2 teachers out of 135 said that they take children to outside playground area every day. Majority of the teachers reported that they only take children outside on warm weathers but not every day in even in warm weathers. Inadequacy of teachers' use of outdoor spaces were explained by the teacher characteristics (knowledge and skills, belief and attitude, undergraduate education) and external factors (weather conditions, parental pressure, physical equipment and security of the outdoor space, neighborhood factor, school management and students with special needs). Most teachers reported that parents don't want their children play outside on cold weathers. Also teachers are worried about children getting cold and being hurt on playground areas. Keywords: Outdoor area, Outdoor play, Play, Preschool, Teacher