Parental Involvement in Outdoor Play and Learning (OPAL): Action-Based Practices

Date

2025-1-09

Author

Kandemir, Melike

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The purpose of this study was to enrich the involvement of parents in outdoor play and learning (OPAL) through action-based practices. Conducted with the qualitative design, this participatory action research benefited from data collection tools, which are semi-structured interviews, observations, and document analysis. The study was conducted in a private preschool located in Çankaya, Ankara, and was selected by convenience sampling method. The first step was the need and context analysis conducted with 12 volunteer preschool teachers and 17 volunteer parents. After understanding the context and determining the needs, one volunteer teacher and five volunteer parents whose children are in this teacher’s classroom participated in also other steps of the study. Five action cycles, which are Worm Hotel, Flower Life Cycle, Animals Go Wild, Hexie’s Mud Story, and Water Drops, were created and implemented based on needs. The study was concluded with the overall evaluation of the whole process. The data were analyzed through content and thematic analysis. The findings demonstrated that action-based practices, which are parent-teacher meetings and volunteer parent-involved activities, helped to enrich OPAL perspectives, and supported the involvement of parents more in OPAL. Therefore, the implemented practices offering a distinct way to minimize the OPAL barriers resulted from the parental involvement lack and concerns related to OPAL. In light of these findings, it was suggested that volunteer activities could be done more and also in poor weather conditions.

Subject Keywords

outdoor play, outdoor learning, parental involvement, early childhood education, action research, dış mekanda oyun, dış mekanda öğrenme, ebeveyn katılımı, okul öncesi eğitimi, eylem araştırması

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/112993

Collections

Graduate School of Social Sciences, Thesis