Researching and evaluating play
A smile is a good measure of a child’s enjoyment of play, but if we want to know why they’re having fun, we have to delve a little deeper.
There’s a particular expression that children hold when they are fully immersed in play. We call it the ‘play face’. For the most part we see this when children are engrossed in adventurous types of play, and while it’s a good indicator of a child’s enjoyment, it doesn’t tell us enough about the child’s play or the project.
Eden uses a range of methods for collecting information about children’s play, both statistically, orally and through other creative mediums. We use our findings to inform both what we do onsite and in our community-based work. For example, we know quite a few thousand dens get built in our arena at Eden every summer, and that dad’s, particularly, tend to take over their children’s den building, and that a lot of parents like to be in close proximity to their children when playing in public spaces. From this small bit of data we can already see patterns, such as, children like to construct things from lots of loose bits of stuff. In fact, it’s the most popular type of play the world over. Adults, especially males, immediately connect with this type of play, and finally, there’s much more supervision over children than there was 30+ years ago, which informs us that society’s attitudes to children’s freedoms within the public realm have changed.
The biggest challenge for evaluating and researching children’s play is not being too stuck in adult models of research, but instead listening to what children say and see through their eyes and their experiences, and constantly understanding how and why children need to play. A child playing around a tree could simply be a child playing around a tree. But see the situation through the child’s viewpoint and we might instead see a dragon in place of a tree and a dragon slayer instead of a child. This shift is the most difficult for adults, because for many it’s been a long time since they’ve played and the structures of the adult world have eroded all remnants of childhood imagination and playfulness.
Research and evaluation has to be playful and meaningful.
'Mud between your Toes' aims to connect children and young people to the world they live in - to experience, understand and celebrate their sense of place and purpose in the natural world and in their communities.
Eden is a charity and we need help to fund our work. Making a donation will enable more children and young people to take part in our Mud between your Toes programme.