The Development of Constructive and Symbolic Play Program to Enhance Self-Regulation of Young Children

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์Naruemon Mahikul
Piyanan Hirunchalothorn
Pensri Sawangchareon

Abstract

            The purposes of this research were to develop and evaluate a constructive and symbolic play program to enhance self-regulation of young children. The participants were 16 children, aged 3–4 years, at PlayKidsCenter, Saraburi Province. The research consists of 2 main phases: Phase 1, Development Phase– Designing and refining the program; Phase 2, Implementation and Evaluation Phase– Conducting trials and assessing effectiveness; The research instruments included the constructive and symbolic play program to enhance self-regulation of young children and self-regulation assessment. The data were analyzed using the mean, standard deviation, and content analysis.


            The research results indicated that 1) the program possesses 3 key characteristics. The first, regarding the content dimension, is that the program provided essential knowledge that enables participating teachers to understand the underlying principles, conceptual frameworks, theories, objectives, scope, and content of the program. This knowledge aims to support the development of self-regulation in early childhood through the integration of symbolic play and constructive play. The second, in terms of implementation, the program included preparatory activities and orientation sessions designed to build understanding among teachers. Teachers were responsible for implementing the activities with children, participating in reflective meetings to share experiences, discussing challenges and obstacles encountered during the implementation, and engaging in summary sessions following the completion of the program. The third, the program materials consisted of a comprehensive manual and a set of activity media, comprising 4 themes and a total of 30 activities. 2) The results of the program implementation indicated that early childhood children who participated in the constructive and symbolic play-based activities demonstrated higher average scores in self-regulation compared to their pre-program scores. The highest improvement was observed in behavioral regulation, followed by emotional regulation and cognitive regulation, respectively.

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References

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