The aim of this research project was to develop a survey to gather the attitudes of primary school teachers across the island of Ireland towards play, including a special focus on attitudes towards play for the inclusion of autistic learners within primary school classrooms. Given the significant lack of research in this area, the project sought to provide insight into primary school teachers’ current play beliefs and facilitate the development of a measure of teachers’ play beliefs for future research. Play is important for child development and education (Singer, Golinkoff & HirshPasek, 2003; Whitebread et al., 2012). This is reflected within both national (NCCA, 2009) and international policy recommendations (UNCRC, 1989). However, it remains unclear as to whether such recommendations and values translate into practice. As a result, it is timely to systematically examine teachers’ perceptions of play within primary school education and to provide data on a significant gap within the play literature. Also, it is important to examine teachers’ attitudes towards play for inclusion. In the context of widening diversity of classrooms and at a time when there are increasing numbers of autistic children accessing mainstream education (DES, 2019), the dearth of knowledge on play for inclusion within the primary school classroom (O’Keeffe & McNally, 2020) highlights the need for more research on attitudes towards play for inclusion and how this might shape practice. The SCoTENS seed funding supported a brief literature review, a pilot study of teacher and child attitudes to play in education, and the development of a new measure of teacher attitudes to play in education. Firstly, the literature was systematically searched to identify questions that had previously been used in empirical published research to assess teacher attitudes to play in education, with an additional search specifically for research on play for inclusive education. Secondly, parents and primary school-aged children (aged 8 or older) were invited to interviews to inform the development of the survey measure content. Lastly, primary school teachers in Northern Ireland (NI) and the Republic of Ireland (RoI) were interviewed in semi-structured online interviews (20-30 minutes) to facilitate the development of an appropriate survey instrument in order to ascertain teachers’ play beliefs. During the interview, participants were prompted by the facilitator with a series of questions to ascertain their attitudes towards play in education more broadly and play for the inclusion of autistic pupils. Drawing together input from children, parents, teachers and the published 2 literature, a teacher questionnaire was then developed to measure attitudes to play in primary school education. Overall, this study found positive attitudes towards play in education among a range of stakeholders in the literature and those interviewed as part of this study. While children in our study viewed play in educational contexts as primarily related to the outdoors and active play, teachers viewed play as valuable for teaching, learning and assessment across contexts. In the literature, important gaps were evident in empirical research on associations between play and children’s learning in the classroom. Specifically, the knowledge-base for play pedagogies in education was mixed and we proposed that this is partly due to persistent challenges and inconsistencies in how play is defined in the research literature: without a consistent and comprehensive definition of play it is difficult to establish ‘firm causal relationships’ between play and development (Whitebread et al., 2017, p.4). We further highlighted tensions in defining play-based learning and that this may also serve to undermine efforts to use play in educational contexts (Bubikova-Moan et al., 2019) as well as inclusive education. This was further reflected in the views of play expressed by teachers interviewed in this study which emphasised the need for additional resources, training, and potentially challenging mindsets around play in education. Interview data also revealed concerns around setting age limits on play in education, whereby opportunities for play among older children may be minimised in school because of a belief that play is for younger children. The value of play for the language and social skill development of autistic children, in particular in the context of outdoor play, was stressed by teachers in NI and the RoI and an important part of inclusive educational practice. The questionnaire developed in this study drawing on both the stakeholder insights and the literature will be tested and validated beyond the lifecycle of this project and will become an openly accessible resource, making an important contribution to play research. By developing a robust instrument to ascertain teachers’ attitudes towards play and play for inclusion of autistic learners within the classroom, our measure will facilitate future rigorous research in this field.
