The Development of The Parent-Child Play Iinteraction Measurement (3-5 Years Old)

Abstract

This study aims to develop a new observation measurement on play behavior between parent and preschool child (3-5 years old) in Thai context. The measurement is expected to be easy to use and to be able to promote good quality of play behavior between parent and preschool child. This measurement has been developed based on the study on concepts and theories and related measurements as well as the content validity validated by three experts. This study collected data from 95 couples of mother and preschool child. The result indicates that the instrument is reliable and valid. The Kuder – Richardson coefficient is .81 with good to excellent inter-rater reliability between independent coders (kappa = .83 to 1.00). Exploratory Factor Analysis of the coded behaviors results in a six-component model (i.e. parent positive effect, child positive effect, mutuality, acceptance, cognitive stimulation, and social – emotional stimulation). All six factors can explain 51.65 % of the total variance of the final 26 items in the instrument. Convergent Validity of this instrument, as associated with total scores of the EC-HOME inventory (Caldwell & Bradley, 1984), was very good (r = .71, p< .01).