A self-report play skills questionnaire: Technical development

Australian Occupational Therapylournal(1996) 43,142-154

A se l f - repor t p lay sk i I Is ques t ion na ire: Tech n i ca I development

Jennifer Sfurgess and Jenny Ziviani Department of Occupational Therapy, The University of Queensland, Queensland, Australia

A play skills self-report questionnaire in game form was administered to 72 children aged between 4 years 10 months and 7 years 6 months. The same questions were answered by a parent and teacher of each child. The aim was to establish how children’s perceptions of their play skills differed from those of their parents and teachers. Twenty-two children were retested after 1 month to examine test-retest reliability. The influence of age and gender on play self-report and on parent and teacher report, and the effect of position in the family, were also examined. Results indicated that children’s views of their play skills were different from adults. Child and parent absolute agreement was significant to P=0.05 on 6 questions, and child and teacher on 1. There was a significant positive correlation between means of parent and teacher responses (r=0.42, P=0.0025) but not betweeen child and parent or child and teacher. Some consistency over time in the children’s own view was found (7 questions showed significant agreement to P=0.05). There was no significant interaction between age, gender and total score, but a significant gender difference for teacher mean score (z=-2.31, P=0.02) was identified. Means of parents with only one child and those with the subject and one younger child were significantly different (t=3.48, d.$=23, P=0.002). These results suggest that further investigation of methods for children to self-report their play skills is warranted.

KEY W 0 R D S assessment, children, play, play skills, self-report.

because it is a complex behaviour and partly because standardized play evaluations with appropriate psychometric properties are not yet available (Schaefer, Gitlin, & Sand- grund,1991).

Numerous reports have addressed the theorized bene- fits of play, but few have considered how effective an individual child is at playing. Smith (1985) said:

I NTRODUCTI 0 N

Children’s play develops greater skill and complexity with time, and each child’s play influences their motor, cognitive, social, adaptive, linguistic and emotional growth (Cicchetti, Beeghly, & Weiss-Perry, 1994). Because play is so important in a child’s life, it is often used as a compo- nent of assessment for children experiencing difficulties in the areas of health or development. Play is also commonly used as a treatment (Axline, 1969; Heidemann & Hewitt, 1992; Smilansky & Shefatya, 1990). However, data about effectiveness of play intervention are inconclusive, partly

Most of the research on the functions of children’s play over the last couple of decades has concentrated on cognitive growth and creativity as important outcomes. Yet it is certainly arguable that the social and emotional bene- fits of free play are likely to be as important if not more

~~ ~ ~~ ~

Jennifer Sturgess BOccThy; Lecturer. Jenny Ziviani BAppScOT, BA, MED, PhD; Senior Lecturer. Correspondence: Jennifer Sturgess, Department of Occupational Therapy, The University of Queensland, Herston, Qld 4072, Australia. Accepted for publication October 1996.

Play Skills Questionnaire 143

so. This could be a useful research impetus in the future (P. 13).

Social skills and friendships within play are particu- larly important for children during the pre-school to early primary school transition stage. Play is a significant com- ponent in the development of social skills, and yet for this age ways of evaluating play are limited (Sturgess & Ziviani, 1995).

It has become accepted practice, when evaluating adults, to inquire about their view of things such as their situation, problems and strengths. This practice is becom- ing more applicable to children as well (Eccles, Wigfield, Harold, & Blumenfeld, 1993; Ialongo, Edelsohn, Werthamer-Larsson, Crockett, & Kellam, 1994). However, the age at which children’s self-report is reliable for various types of question is not yet established (Harter & Pike, 1984; Mash & Terdal, 1988). There is evidence that children in early and middle childhood overestimate their abilities in many areas and that they become closer to a realistic, comparative adult view by around 9 years of age (Coster & Jaffe, 1991). In terms of reporting symptoms, however, Ialongo et al. (1994) demonstrated that children younger than 7 years can self-report anxiety symptoms and that the self-reports remain fairly stable at a 4-month interval after retesting. Very little has been documented about how children view their play.

For both children and adults the type of response (e.g. emotional, factual, attitudinal) that can be obtained by self-report is constantly being refined (Edelbrock, Costello, Dulcan, Kalas, & Conover, 1985; Herjanic, Her- janic, Brown, & Wheatt, 1975). Nevertheless, knowing a client’s view has advantages in terms of motivation, goal setting, evaluation of change and mutual cooperation in therapy (Hops & Greenwood, 1988; Kielhofner, 1992), all of which are important components of occupational therapy. Occupational therapists working with children usually gather data about the child’s play by observation and by asking significant others. The Preschool Play Scale (Bledsoe & Shepherd, 1982; Knox, 1974), for example, is a commonly used structured observation checklist of devel- opmentally sequenced play behaviours. It determines a play age and has acceptable interrater reliability, but is limited by the need for evaluations to occur over several times in several settings in order to be valid. Other play evaluations have been reviewed in a previous paper (Sturgess & Ziviani, 1995).

Occupational therapists might ask informally for the child’s view of their play, but no formal evaluations of this view exist. If children in pre-school and early primary school could reliably answer questions about their play, this might assist therapists to understand the viewpoint of children experiencing social- and school-related problems. Schaefer et al. (1991) suggested that a child needs to have the motivation to solve a problem for therapy to be successful. An extremely positive self-rating of play ability in a child, for example, might suggest to a therapist some difficulties with motivation to change play behaviour.

The value of a self-report play questionnaire for 5-7- year-old children has been argued more fully in a previous report (Sturgess & Ziviani, 1995). The aim of this paper is to document the technical aspects of the development of a play skills self-report questionnaire in game form.

Development of the Playform involved an extensive literature review, consultation with experienced clinicians, and trial with children to gauge the appropriateness of the selected questions about play (Sturgess & Ziviani, 1995). Following these steps, a pilot study was conducted to evaluate the suitability of the questionnaire format and develop guidelines for administration. The pilot study with 13 children (9 girls and 4 boys) showed that the Playform questions were understood and responded to by 5-year- old children, and so were likely to be appropriate for 6- and 7-year-olds also. The same questions, in adapted form to suit answering as a checklist, were able to be answered by parents and teachers (Sturgess & Ziviani, 1995).

Having trialled the Playform, the present study aimed to test the self-report on a representative sample of non- referred children, in order to begin to establish normative data and determine reliability. The broad research question was: ‘How do children without identified cognitive or behavioural problems self-report about their play skills?’ The reliability of the assessment can in part be determined by seeing whether the answers that a child gives are similar to those which they give at a second attempt (test- retest consistency).

The responses of a parent or teacher may well be different to each other as well as to those of the child, because of contextual variations. There is evidence that different raters seeing children in different contexts con- tributes to decreased interrater reliability (Achenbach, 1985). Thus a comparison of the pattern of responses of parents and teachers, in relation to those of the child, was considered an important undertaking in the first instance.

144 J. Sturgess and J. Ziviani

As well, because gender influences play preferences and style (Fein, 1981; Herron & Sutton-Smith, 1971; Playform Humphreys & Smith, 1984) the effect of gender on play self-report was examined. Further, because children

Table 1. Descriptive data on 72 child respondents to

Characteristic n

develop in many aspects over time, and it has been shown that their play changes over time, the impact of age on how children report their play skills also needed to be ascertained. There is some likelihood that the number of children in the family and the position of the child in the family may further influence self-perception of play skills, and so the responses of parents and children according to the number of children in the family were analysed for significant differences.

METHOD

R e s e a r c h design

An ex-postfacto research design was selected. Although broad hypotheses were proposed, it was assumed that the data gathered would be used as an initial description of response styles in the area of play self-report.

S u b j e c t s

The subjects were 72 children aged between 4 years 10 months and 7 years 6 months. Age distributions are shown in Table 1. Categories were organized to ensure the most equal numbers per category, although this was still limited. The children came from a variety of child care, preschool, and primary school situations (Table 1). The primary schools that were selected by the Department of Educa- tion in Queensland for inclusion in the study were in the western suburbs of Brisbane within half an hour’s drive from the University of Queensland. All schools had enrol- ments of around 300 children. Socio-economic status of the school’s catchment area was not determined.

State preschool centres, childcare centres and community preschools affiliated with the Creche and Kinder- garten Association that were geographically close to the designated primary schools were selected to complete sampling of the required age range within the same geographic area. The private primary school that was used had students from a wide distribution of suburbs, and it was likely that, overall, the students were from families of relatively high economic status; however, it was the only

Male Female Age <60 months 60-69 months 70-79 months 80-90 months >90 months

Private childcare centre Community preschooVkindergarten State preschool centre State primary school Private primary school

None Medical requiring treatment Behavioural requiring treatment No information from parents

Number of siblings No siblings One younger More than one younger One older More than one older Both older and younger siblings

Family situation Intact One parent

Type of centre attended

Current medical or behavioural condition

Blended

28 44

3 34 14 17 4

12 13 6

28 13

58 8 2 4

14 19 4

13 11 11

64 4 4

private primary school in the same geographic area. Vari- ous types of centres were used so that the sample of children and families in this study could be seen to be broadly representative of the community; however, random sampling of schools and centres was not possible.

At preschool and childcare centres 5- and 6-year-old children were targeted. However, as data were collected in the first half of the year there were very few 6-year-old children. Several children who turned 5 between the initial test and retest were included. Classes had to be selected in the designated schools so that there was limited disruption to timetables and so that teachers with several years


experience were included. It was assumed that experienced teachers would be better able to make comparative judgements when completing the teacher Playform. These constraints upon the available sample had the effect of creating unequal age groupings of children. Only the children from the creche and kindergarten-affiliated community preschool, and the private primary school, were available to be evaluated twice, and so these were used for test-retest data gathering.

Children were selected to be included if they were in the designated age range and had parental informed consent. Children were not included if, in the opinion of the experienced teacher, the child had a cognitive delay that required or might in the near future require intervention, or if the child had a behavioural problem for which he or she had been referred or was currently receiving treatment.

A p p a r a t u s

Apparatus consisted of the Playform in which children answered 20 questions about a range of play skills according to whether they felt they could do it very well, quite well or not very well. The children responded to the questions by posting a card into one of three posting boxes. The boxes were graded in size and each card had the question written on it. The child was informed that the biggest box was for things they could do very well, the middle sized box for things they could do quite well, and the

Figure 1. Arrangement of boxes and an example of a card used in the playform game.

smallest box for things they could not do very well yet (Figure 1). As well as the card for posting, a second card, retained by the researcher, contained a standard elabora- tion of the question, giving examples of play behaviours, which was read to the child before they were handed the posting card. A total score out of 60 was generated by summing the score out of three for each question.

Other apparatus included a data collection sheet for recording children’s demographic data and their responses to the Playform; a standard introduction statement to the Playform; the parent Playform; and a similar form for teachers. (Further details of apparatus can be provided by contacting the authors.)

P r o c e d u r e

In each setting, the researcher endeavoured to use a quiet, non-distracting, child-friendly space for administration of the Playform. In all cases the child was seated at either a child-sized table and chair or on a carpeted floor, with the researcher seated opposite. The three posting boxes were placed between the child and the researcher. Other mate- rials were kept out of sight of the child.

The steps followed in administering the Playform to the child and collecting the associated data were as follows:

1 A standard Playform introduction was given. 2 Demographic data questions, such as name, age,

year at school, family composition and pets, were recorded. These questions served to gather factual data that would later be checked with data supplied by the parents in order to assess the child’s ability to accurately answer questions, and also served to demonstrate to the child that the questions were ones that they would be able to answer. This introductory time was used to develop rap- port and create a sense of enjoyable participation for the child.

3 The Playform game was demonstrated to the child using six practice questions, which were designed to be fun and to encourage the child to use all the boxes. Examples of questions are: Can you eat ice cream?; Can you say the alphabet backwards?; Can you climb trees? Variations in wording during this time occurred according to how quickly the child understood the instructions or to suit the child’s preferred learning style. For example, some children preferred to guess how the game was played and see

146 1. Sturgess and 1. Ziviani

if they were right. Instruction continued until it seemed that the child understood the game procedure. After the practice questions the child was asked if they thought they knew how to play the game. Only one child required further use of the practice questions.

4 A standard procedure for the 20 questions was used. A question was read to the child, and then the card for posting was handed to the child as close to their midline and the middle box as possible. The aim was to minimize hasty responses and to guard against inadvertently suggesting a response to a child.

There were instances when a child found it difficult to select a response. Often they would talk out loud while making their decision, and sometimes they seemed keen to enlist the help of the researcher. In such cases, non- committal encouraging responses were given, or the meaning of the response categories in general terms was repeated. The decision was left to the child, even if it seemed that the ultimate selection did not tally with the verbalizations. Children with a hasty response style were given one reminder during the 20 questions to think about the answer so that they could give the answer that suited them best.

5 While the cards were being posted the researcher recorded answers on a separate sheet. This proved to be distracting to some children.

6 Parent Playforms were distributed on the same day that the child was tested. Parent forms were given after the child had been tested to prevent any inadvertent coaching of the child by the parent. They were given on the same day so that information about unusual events that may have affected the child’s responses (such as birth of a sibling, shifting house, etc.) could be gathered at the appropriate time.

7 For children who were going to be retested, a further information and consent form was sent home with the parent Playform.

8 Teachers were given the teacher Playforms and asked to complete them as soon as possible. Most were completed within a week, but two teachers took several weeks to return forms.

9 Children to be retested were visited after one month had elapsed. The same procedure for testing was used as in the initial Playform administration. However, no parent or teacher Playforms were distributed this time.

RESULTS

Details of subjects and response rates were tabulated descriptively, and data were analysed to examine overall agreement between the pairs of responses: child test-child retest, child-parent, child-teacher and parent-teacher. The influence of age and gender on agreement was also examined. Results were then converted to quantitative data by generation of mean scores and further analysed. This procedure was statistically possible because of the relatively large number of subjects and variables (Moore & McCabe, 1993).

Descr ipt ive da ta on subjects and response r a t e s

Seventy-two children completed the Playform questionnaire. Children with siblings (n=58) answered 20 questions and those with no siblings (n=14) answered 19 questions. llventy-two children completed the Playform questionnaire a second time to form the retest group.

There were four parent Playforms not returned. Of the 68 parent questionnaires returned, eight had some questions not completed. This resulted in a response rate of 83.3% for parent Playforms.

All teacher Playform questionnaires were returned. However, only 15 of the 20 questions were consistently answered, as three Playform questions related specifically to home and two further questions were answered by some teachers but not others. These were questions about being able to find something to play to make themselves feel better, and about being able to find someone else to play with when they wanted to. Teachers may have felt that these questions were also more applicable to home.

In many instances, calculations for the results of this study have been taken from 58 subjects, as 14 subjects were without siblings and so only 19 of the 20 questions were answered. In other cases, incomplete sets from either parent or teacher have affected the number of subjects that could be used for analysis.

The numbers of subjects in particular groups are presented in Table 1. Mean scores and standard deviations for the whole sample, and for gender and age categories separately, are given in Table 2. The mean score and standard deviation for the parent responses (m=2.45, SD=0.28) were calculated using 50 fully completed forms and 10 with 19 answered due to absence of siblings. The mean


Table 2. Mean scores for children’s Playform responses on initial testing

m SD n

Playform means by gender 20 Playform questions answered

Males Females

Males Females

19 Playform questions answered

Playform means by age group 20 Playform questions answered <60 months 60-70 months 70-80 months 80-90 months >90 months

<60 months 60-70 months 70-80 months 80-90 months >90 months

19 Playform questions answered

2.60 0.23 58 2.62 0.22 24 2.59 0.24 34 2.61 0.24 72 2.61 0.25 28 2.61 0.23 44

2.46 0.13 5 2.66 0.19 33 2.51 0.23 14 2.55 0.29 16 2.68 0.35 4

2.47 0.11 5 2.67 0.23 33 2.56 0.24 14 2.58 0.25 16 2.63 0.30 4

score and standard deviation for teacher responses (m=2.34, SD=0.48) was calculated using the 15 questions consistently answered. There were 61 Playforms from teachers with these questions all completed.

Means and number of chi ldren in the fami ly

The number of siblings and the position of the tested child within the family was gathered for all the subjects. A multi-box plot was generated to show the dispersion of the parent mean scores according to the 6 categories of family patterns of siblings (Fig. 2). Visual inspection suggested that there was a difference between the means of the parents with only one child and the parents with the subject and one younger child. A two-sample t-test showed a significant difference between these two groups (r=3.48, d.f.=23, P=0.002). Visual inspection of a multi-box plot of the children’s means showed little difference between categories and so no further analysis was conducted.

2.0

No One More One More Older and siblings younger than one older than one younger

younger older siblings

Si bl i ngs

Figure 2. Multi-box plot of parent means according to the six categories of family patterns of siblings.

Analysis of agreement between chi ld-parent , chi ld- teacher and parent - teacher

This analysis was undertaken to address the research question about the extent to which the child and significant adults would have different view’s of the child’s play. The response format was binary: either the answers were the same or not. A binomial test of the null hypothesis to test agreement between child-parent, child-teacher and parent-teacher on each Playform question was undertaken. Tiventy questions were used for analysis of the child-parent responses, but for the child-teacher and parent-teacher responses 17 questions were used. The binomial test of the null hypothesis that the likelihood that the two parties agreed is 50% (a one-sided test) was used. Table 3 shows the questions on which there was a significant level of absolute agreement. Child and parent agreed on six questions, child and teacher on one question, and parent and teacher on one question.

Means of the responses from parents, teachers and children were generated to convert the ordinal data to quantitative data for analysis (Moore & McCabe, 1993). Pearson’s product-moment correlations for the three pairs were calculated. There was a significant positive correlation between the parent and teacher means (r=0.42, P=0.0025), but not between the children’s mean and either parent or teacher means.

148 J. Sturgess and I. Ziviani

Table 3. Table of absolute agreement between child-retest, child-parent, child-teacher, and parent-teacher for 20 Playform questions

Question Child-retest Child-Parent Child-Teacher Parent-Teacher

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20

* ** **

* ** ** * **

** 0

0

NA

*

NA

** ** **

* * NA NA NA NA

* K0.05; ** p10.01; h0 .07 ; NA not applicable.

A relatively informal check on the consistency of factual information between parents and children was conducted by comparing the answers to background details (age, birthday, family composition, pets) supplied by both. In 55 cases there was consistency, in 10 there was minor inconsistency, and in three there was a major inconsistency.

Rel iabi l i ty o f P layform

Internal consistency and test-retest reliability of the Play- form were examined. Interrater reliability was not examined because the questionnaire was self-report in style.

In tern a I cons i s ten cy Cronbach’s alpha was considered an appropriate statistic as the items were not scored dichotomously, the number of items was not extremely large, and there was no speed element to the test (Norusis, 1990, Walsh & Betz, 1990).

Alphas were determined for the three different ways in which the Playform was used: as a child measure, parent measure and teacher measure. Using 19 items and all the child respondents, the results for the children was alpha =

0.69, giving a common factor variance of 48%. Also using 19 questions, and therefore including all parents who responded, the parent alpha was 0.76 (with a common factor variance of 58%). The teacher’s alpha (0.91) was com- puted using the 15 consistently answered questions, and resulted in a common factor variance of 83%.

Test-retest re l iab i l i ty A linear regression model was used to estimate and test for significance the effect of age and gender on the proba- bility of the two results being the same. The response format here was binary: either the answers were the same or not. On this basis there was no effect demonstrated by age, gender or by an interaction between age and gender. The analysis then reduced to a binomial test of the null hypothesis that the likelihood that the two instances of the test would produce agreement was 0.5 or 50%. The test was a one-sided test since agreement of less than 50% was not of relevance. Table 3 shows the seven questions on which there was significant agreement at P<O.Ol and P<O.O5 for the child-child comparisons. There were two other questions that approached significance. These would not usually be mentioned in research that built on earlier work; however, as this question of children self-reporting about play skills has not been researched previously, the information was included for interest, although no infer- ences can be drawn.

Absolute differences in scores for each question were graphed to show the number of children for which there was total agreement on the particular question over the 2 test administrations; the number of children for which there was one point difference between responses over the two tests; and the number of children for which there was the maximum difference of response over the two tests (Fig. 3). From these graphs it can be seen that in eleven questions (no. 1-5,7,8,14,16,17,20) all, or all but one, of the children retested gave themselves a rating that was the same or only one point different over the two tests. This means that on these questions there was more general agreement between the responses for the two test times than for the other questions. This information is descriptive only, and no statistical analysis is possible.


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14 14 14 f 12

O 0 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 2 Score differences Score differences Score differences Scom difhmnces

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E l6 14

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0 1 2 0 1 2 0 1 2 Score diffennwa

O 0 1 2 Score dltterencsrr Score differences Score differences

3. Can you play with one other kid?

20 c 13. Can you Join in some rough and tumble play?

18. Can you

," 10 0 8

O 0 1 2 Score differences

8. Can you use

f 12

2

O 0 1 2 Score differences

t

nn, 2 0

0 1 2 Score differences

0 1 2 Score dlfferencsr

4. Can you pla games with ruL?

20 c 20 c e. Can you join with kids who are already playing? 20 L 14. Can you use

things that are strcky or dirty while playing?

19. Can you find a apace at home to play on our own if you w a i to? n L 0 1 2 ILL 0 1 2

n h 0 1 2 2 0

0 1 2 Score differences &on differencia Score differen& Score differen&

5. Can you drew things or do art

2 0 1 1n work?

10. Can you usual1 flnd somtiing to piny at home?

15. Can you and something to play when you want to feel better?

20. Can you play with your brother6 or slstem?

L n L nn, Y l L L 2 0


s 2 2

0 2 0



0 1 2 Score difference8

Figure 3. Graphs of absolute score differences between children's initial and re-test responses for each question.

150 1. Sturgess and 1. Ziviani

E f f e c t of a g e and gender on p lay sel f - r e p o r t

A total Playform score was calculated by summing the responses, with ‘very well’ scoring three, ‘quite well’ scoring two, and ‘not very well’ scoring one. This was calculated for the first time the child was tested.

An analysis of variance using mean score and using all the children (n=72) and only 19 questions was performed. No significant age, gender or gender by age effects were found.

The in f luence of chi ld’s age and gender on p a r e n t and t e a c h e r responses

No significant impact was found for age and gender on the parent means on the Playform. A significant gender difference was found, however, for the teacher mean score, using the Wilcoxon rank-sum test (Z=-2.31, P=0.02). This somewhat stringent method of analysis was used because the distribution of the teacher’s responses could not be assumed to be normal, and the Wilcoxon rank-sum test does not require assumptions about normal distributions and equal variances. Means for individual questions for males and females were tabulated for 15 questions. For the questions ‘Can the child draw things or do other art work?’ and ‘Can the child use their hands to do careful things while playing?’, there was the largest mean difference, with teachers rating girls as more capable than boys.

DISCUSSION

It had previously been determined that more ways of evaluating play were required, and that self-report offered beneficial features consistent with occupational therapy philosophies (Sturgess & Ziviani, 1995). Self-report assessment allows the individual to retain a sense of self- determination and mastery. It allows the therapist to gain the broadest view of the client’s understanding of their own strengths and weaknesses, and to complement the picture obtained from objective assessment. In this research project the Playform was subjected to procedures to determine validity and reliability. These results will be reviewed, a case study presented by way of illustration, and limitations and future directions for the Playform detailed.

Construct va l id i ty of the Playform

Construct validity requires a combination of time and sys- tematic procedures to be conclusive. In this instance it is the child’s concept of his or her play skills that is at issue. How much and in what areas there was agreement between child and parent was examined. The assumption was that agreement would be highest for factual details and that the child’s view would differ sufficiently from the parent’s to suggest that unique information was being gathered. This uniqueness helps establish independence of the construct.

Child-parent agreement was demonstrated for six questions, which seemed to be either the broader questions (e.g. ‘can you play lots of different things?’) or the factual ones (e.g. ‘can you find a space at home to play?’). There is previous evidence that children and parents agree best on factual questions (Herjanic et al., 1975). Agree- ment for all questions was not expected because of the different viewpoints and contexts from which children and parents operate. Few studies have examined agreement between children and parents; however, Edelbrock et al. (1985) found 6-9-year-old children did not report as reliably as their parents about psychiatric symptoms. In this study, parents’ and children’s mean scores were not correlated. This could suggest that children are likely to answer according to their overall view of themselves playing, but that parents have certain expectations and are potentially more critical.

Children and teachers also answered quite differently, which further confirms the results of this study as a separate field of information about the child. Teachers may have a very comparative orientation, due to the numbers of children they see and their expertise in educational assessment. It may be this that produced the larger standard deviation of teachers’ responses than of parents’ and children’s responses.

The lack of agreement between teacher and parent, when absolute agreement on individual questions was examined, was surprising as it had been theorized that adults’ views would show some similarity. However there was a significant correlation between the means of the parents’ and teachers’ responses, and so an overall similarity of view about the child’s play seems to exist between parents and teachers that doesn’t exist between children and parents or teachers. Previous evidence that different raters seeing children in different contexts decreases inter-


rater agreement (Achenbach, 1985) is consistent with the results of this study.

In some related research, parents and teachers of children with learning disabilities produced similar responses on the sum of responses and on the externalizing scales of the Child Behaviour Checklist, but did not agree significantly on internalizing factors (Rosenberg, Harris, & Rei- fler, 1988). Children were from 7.9 to 12.5 years of age, but the younger the child the greater the difference between parent and teacher on internalizing scores. A similar effect may have occurred with the Playform, as these children were even younger. Teachers may be responding objec- tively to externally viewed behaviour and parents may be responding to more internalized factors about their child’s play. Further, parents are likely to see more pure recre- ational play than teachers, and teachers are most likely to see only social play. Therefore the domains of play that were reviewed do not completely intersect. There seems, therefore, to be some potential for the Playform to tap an area of information that is not simply covered by asking parents or teachers about a child’s play. The child is the constant feature of all the contexts in which they play, and so provides a complete and idiosyncratic view.

Test re l i ab i l i t y This study examined internal consistency and test-retest reliability in order to evaluate the average correlation among items in the test in relation to the overall number of items, and the stability over time of the answers given by the child. The coefficients obtained suggest that there was reasonable internal consistency. Internal consistency was lowest for the child, which may be taken to suggest that the child viewed the questions as less related than did the parents or teachers. Nevertheless, there was sufficient support to indicate that acceptable levels of internal consistency were achieved on all forms.

Teachers demonstrated the highest internal consistency in their responses. They may see the items as highly correlated in an overall view of the child. However, the teachers were responding to 15 questions, and the reduced number, or the questions that were not included, may have contributed to the difference obtained.

Similarity of answers on two occasions suggests that a fairly stable concept is being measured that is not exces- sively influenced by variables such as daily changes in the child, or the environment, or the administrator (Deitz, 1989). On this trial of the Playform, although the number

of test-retest subjects was small (n=22), there seems to be some indication that the child has a stable play self- concept over a 4-week period in certain areas, while the stability in other areas is not so reliable.

The types of questions producing agreement and therefore suggesting stable play self-concept, compared to those with less agreement, needs exploring to determine if the nature of the questions that are asked influences the results. The questions on which there was agreement were those that were less complex (e.g. ‘Can you play games where there are rules to follow?’). The questions that had less agreement required more judgement or difficult decision-making (e.g. ‘Can you pretend to be someone in a game of make-believe?’ or ‘Can you find something to play when you want to feel better?’). The language required to express these concepts may have influenced the child’s understanding of the question. It is also possible that these questions have less stability over time, and are more subject to the child’s daily experiences, in which case they will have poor test-retest reliability.

An order effect may have occurred, as many questions with less agreement were those later in the set. Children may lose interest by then, or the questions may inadvertently have been ordered so that difficult concepts occurred later. In further studies to explore the reliability of the Playform it would be important to test for an order effect in administering the questions.

There is evidence that self-concept is a global factor and also contains separate domains (Harter & Pike, 1984; Marsh, Craven, & Debus, 1991). Global and domain differ- entiation may be an issue for the Playform, and children may be answering more in terms of their global play self- concept than the different aspects of play. If this is the case, the number of questions on the Playform could per- haps be reduced. With a larger sample size, factor-analytic procedures may be capable of differentiating questions that contribute to specific factors. Factor analysis would also contribute to construct validation (Anastasi, 1988).

Test-retest agreement may need further substantia- tion. A subjective impression of the researcher was that the younger children appeared to be responding at times according to whether they remembered the question rather than by evaluating themselves, although there is no way of knowing whether this reduced agreement. Several of the older children were reluctant the second time because other children in the class had gone to watch a video. More exploration of the stability of the Playform


over time is needed. Anastasi (1988) has proposed that a shorter test-retest period should be used for younger children who are subjective to progressive developmental changes. A shorter test-retest time would mean that the child was more likely to remember the questions, and so reduce concern about whether remembering the question or not remembering influenced how the child answered.

The in f luence of a g e and gender on p e r c e i v e d p lay competence

Influences of age and gender are difficult to interpret in the context of this study. It was expected that there would be an increase in perceived competence with age, because the Playform questions covered all areas of play, including some that children have been said to acquire as they get older (e.g. interest and skill in games with rules). How- ever, a simple increase with age did not occur. Neither was there a significant difference on the basis of gender.

Eccles et al. (1993), with 865 children aged betweeen 7 and 10 years, confirmed earlier reports that younger children give themselves higher competence ratings than older children. Kazdin (1989) found 6-9-year-old children rated themselves significantly higher than 10-13-year-old children on self-report of pleasure in relation to various activities. The absence of any age effect in the current study may be because the age of the subjects is less than those who were in the younger age groups of the earlier studies. Children aged 5-7 years may not be cognitively able to rate themselves comparatively enough to show change with increased age.

Although no interaction between gender and age and play skill was shown, it requires further investigation in the context of play and perceived competence. Larger numbers of subjects, and more equal numbers at various age levels, would allow more comprehensive investigation of any association between increasing age, gender and Playform rating.

The difference between teachers’ mean scores for male and female children is interesting. Due to the nature of the questions that had the greatest difference in mean scores, it would seem to be explained largely by the differences in boys and girls approaches to art activities, and to school play activities that require finer hand control. Cer- tainly, there seems to be a large difference created by the school context compared to the home context.

The in f luence of posit ion i n the fami ly on ch i ld and p a r e n t responses

Children did not demonstrate any difference in their self- perception of play skills according to whether they had siblings or the position they filled within the family. Although only-children had the highest mean score, there was no significant difference. However, parents who had only one child produced the highest mean score of the six groups, and this was significantly different to the parents who had one younger child. Although the mean of the responses of parents with only one child was higher than all the other categories, the difference was not significant between the other groups. It could be speculated that progressive experience at parenting and numbers of children with whom to compare are influential in explaining the difference. With only one younger sibling, between-sibling rivalry may operate against the older sibling when behavioural comparisons are made, but when there are more siblings the parents may have a more philosophical and future-oriented view of their child’s behaviour. Parents with only one child have limited opportunities for comparison. From these results it would seem essential for future studies to take into consideration the existence of siblings in any evaluation of parent responses.

Case study

The Playform showed some interesting responses in individual children, which may add support to the case for continuing investigation of this style of assessment for possible clinical use.

The parents of one girl initiated contact with the researcher because they were worried about her self- esteem. The only unusual aspect noticed on reviewing her Playform was that she scored herself ‘not very well’ for the question ‘Can you play with one other child and work out something to do?’. Only two other children scored themselves as low on this question, and most felt they were very good at it. Discussion with the girl’s parents and teacher disclosed that she was very competent both in play and socially, but had very definite views on how things should occur and was often unable to compromise. The parents reported that she could do this playskill ‘quite well’, which reflected some concern about her ability to play with one other child; the teacher felt the child could do it very well and managed to find good solutions to her


difficulty with retaining control over a game with one other child, while the child reported according to her perception of herself and her problem with playing a game with someone else. In this instance the Playform was used sensitively enough by the child to pick up this one area of perceived difficulty, while the rest of her play skills were felt to be acceptable, both by herself and by adults. This case provides evidence for the proposal that the Playform, if developed more fully, may be of value clinically.

Future d i rec t ions

There is some indication from the research results that children can reliably report on parts of the Playform over time, that the questions tap information that is different to that supplied by adults, and that it has some possibility for being sensitive to individual differences in children’s play perceptions. All these qualities, while only tentatively proposed at present, nevertheless seem worth pursuing. Before the Playform can be of value clinically it would need to be strengthened in validity and reliability.

On the basis of existing literature, the decision was taken to use a three-point scale as a variation of a Likert- type scale. As a result, the data could only be analysed in terms of absolute agreement between pairs of responses. There was no statistical method available to analyse the fact that a score of two is closer to a three than a one is to a three. Trials of different response formats are needed, including a response scale with more categories, for preci- sion of statistical analysis and to evaluate the type of response format that best suits self-report material about play. For example, Eccles et al. (1993) were working with 7-9-year-olds and used a Likert scale (1-7) with illustra- tions (e.g. stars, graphs) of increasing quantity so that children would understand the meaning. They found this to be successful. A response structure that allows the child to express more grades of perceived ability, while retaining reliability and comprehensibility to the child, potentially improves both clinical and research applicability.

Due to time constraints within the centres, the researcher recorded the child’s responses on a form at the same time as the child was posting cards. However, this appeared distracting to some children, and may have also influenced them to give responses they saw as more socially desirable than would otherwise have been the case. It possibly reduced the extent to which the comple- tion of the Playform could be seen as a game. Ideally, the

recording would be done separately in future studies. As well, the possible effect of order of the questions on the way the child responds needs investigation.

In terms of the sample, further studies with more equal numbers in each age group, along with greater numbers overall, would allow more generalizability from the results. Assigning a criterion for socio-economic status of subjects, and ensuring that a broader spectrum of statuses were included, would also enhance generalizability. In addition, four weeks between test and retest is quite long, and future studies would need a shorter delay to evaluate test-retest reliability (Anastasi, 1988).

The stability shown in the child’s play self-concept may also mean that children are answering about a broader concept of themselves rather than about the individual questions. There are two lines of research that could be developed to clarify this aspect. First, in structural terms it may be that the number of questions on the Playform should be reduced, if individual questions are not con- tributing specifiable information. Second, the relationship between the responses to the Playform and to a measure of self-esteem should be established. It has been found that young children have an overall self-concept as well as self-concept about particular capacities, and the extent to which this duality of self-concept exists in the area of play skills would be important to unravel.

Because the use of self-report about play skills will usually relate to a therapy situation, investigation of how children referred for occupational therapy assessment and treatment respond to questions about their play will be essential. Therefore future work will need to be done with both a non-referred population and a referred population.

In summary, it has proven possible to construct a set of questions about play skills that demonstrate some validity; to set it in a structure that is relatively enjoyable for children; and to demonstrate that children have some stability in play-concept over time and that it is different to how significant adults report on the same concept. Neverthe- less, questions about content and construct validity and reliability remain to be answered.

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A self-report play skills questionnaire: Technical development