Identifying and describing children’s play behaviours is an important component of evaluating child development. The Behaviour Mapping Schedule is a direct observational tool which aims to describe and quantify children’s play behaviours but is yet to undergo reliability testing. This study aimed to determine the intra- and inter-rater reliability of the Behaviour Mapping Schedule. Twelve children aged 3–5 years were each video recorded for one 20-minute playtime period at a purposively selected Community Children’s Centre in Adelaide, South Australia. The video recordings were coded independently by two raters against 23 behaviour codes. Intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) were calculated. Intra-rater ICCs for nearly 70% of the behaviour codes were considered ‘excellent’; likewise, for inter-rater ICCs on more than 50% of the behaviour codes. Overall, the Behaviour Mapping Schedule is a reliable tool for observing children’s play behaviour; however, additional training resources may be useful to further strengthen inter-rater reliability.
AlexanderS. A.FrohlichK. L.FuscoC. (2014). ‘Active play may be lots of fun, but it's certainly not frivolous’: The emergence of active play as a health practice in Canadian public health. Sociology of Health & Illness, 36(8), 1188–1204. doi:10.1111/1467-9566.12158
2.
ChazanS. E. (2009). Observing play activity: The children’s developmental play instrument (CDPI) with reliability studies. Child Indicators Research, 2(4), 417. doi:10.1007/s12187-009-9043-9
3.
CicchettiD.SparrowS. A. (1981). Developing criteria for establishing interrater reliability of specific items: Applications to assessment of adaptive behavior. American Journal of Mental Deficiency, 86, 127–137.
4.
CoplanR.RubinK.FindlayL. (2006). Social and nonsocial play. In Play from birth to twelve: Contexts, perspectives, and meanings (pp. 75–86). Routledge.
5.
DankiwK. A.TsirosM. D.BaldockK. L.KumarS. (2020). The impacts of unstructured nature play on health in early childhood development: A systematic review. Plos One, 15(2), Article e0229006. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0229006
6.
DowdellK.GrayT.MaloneK. (2011). Nature and its influence on children’s outdoor play. Journal of Outdoor and Environmental Education, 15(2), 24–35.
7.
HaidetK. K.TateJ.Divirgilio-ThomasD.KolanowskiA.HappM. B. (2009). Methods to improve reliability of video-recorded behavioral data. Research in Nursing & Health, 32(4), 465–474. doi:10.1002/nur.20334
8.
HallgrenK. A. (2012). Computing inter-rater reliability for observational data: An overview and tutorial. Tutorials in Quantitative Methods for Psychology, 8(1), 23–34. doi:10.20982/tqmp.08.1.p023
9.
HartmannD. P. (1977). Considerations in the choice of interobserver reliability estimates. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 10(1), 103–116. doi:10.1901/jaba.1977.10-103
10.
HillsA. P.MokhtarN.ByrneN. M. (2014). Assessment of physical activity and energy expenditure: An overview of objective measures. Frontiers in Nutrition, 1, 5. doi:10.3389/fnut.2014.00005
11.
HughesF. P. (2010). Children, play, and development (4th ed.). Sage.
12.
LuchsA.FikusM. (2013). A comparative study of active play on differently designed playgrounds. Journal of Adventure Education & Outdoor Learning, 13(3), 206–222. doi:10.1080/14729679.2013.778784
13.
MallerC. J. (2009). Promoting children’s mental, emotional and social health through contact with nature: A model. Health Education, 109(6), 522–543. doi:10.1108/09654280911001185
14.
Meany-DaboulM. G.RoscoeE. M.BourretJ. C.AhearnW. H. (2007). A comparison of momentary time sampling and partial-interval recording for evaluating functional relations. Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis, 40(3), 501–514. doi:10.1901/jaba.2007.40-501
15.
MutzM.MüllerJ. (2016). Mental health benefits of outdoor adventures: Results from two pilot studies. Journal of Adolescence, 49, 105–114. doi:10.1016/j.adolescence.2016.03.009
16.
PellegriniA. D.SymonsF.HochJ. (2012). Observing children in their natural worlds: A methodological primer (3rd ed.). Taylor & Francis Group.
17.
RidgersN. D.StrattonG.McKenzieT. L. (2010). Reliability and validity of the system for observing children’s activity and relationships during play (SOCARP). Journal of Physical Activity & Health, 7(1), 17–25. doi:10.1123/jpah.7.1.17
18.
Saint-MauriceP. F.WelkG.IhmelsM. A.KrapflJ. R. (2011). Validation of the SOPLAY direct observation tool with an accelerometry-based physical activity monitor. Journal of Physical Activity & Health, 8(8), 1108–1116. doi:10.1123/jpah.8.8.1108
19.
Sharma-BrymerV.BlandD. (2016). Bringing nature to schools to promote children’s physical activity. Sports Medicine, 46(7), 955. doi:10.1007/s40279-016-0487-z
20.
StemlerS. (2004). A comparison of consensus, consistency, and measurement approaches to estimating interrater reliability. Practical Assessment, Research, and Evaluation, 9, 1–19.
21.
StolarovaM.WolfC.RinkerT.BrielmannA. (2014). How to assess and compare inter-rater reliability, agreement and correlation of ratings: An exemplary analysis of mother-father and parent-teacher expressive vocabulary rating pairs. Frontiers in Psychology, 5, 509. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2014.00509
22.
StorliR.HagenT. L. (2010). Affordances in outdoor environments and children’s physically active play in pre‐school. European Early Childhood Education Research Journal, 18(4), 445–456. doi:10.1080/1350293x.2010.525923
23.
TorkarG. (2017). Children’s play and physical activity in traditional and forest (natural) playgrounds. International Journal of Educational Methodology, 3, 31–40. doi:10.12973/ijem.3.1.31
24.
TranterP. J.MaloneK. (2004). Geographies of environmental learning: an exploration of children’s use of school grounds. Children’s Geographies, 2(1), 131–155. doi:10.1080/1473328032000168813
25.
TsaoL.-L. (2002). How much do we know about the importance of play in child development?Childhood Education, 78(4), 230–233.
26.
United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. (1990). The convention on the rights of the child. New York UNICEF.
27.
VeitchJ.SalmonJ.BallK. (2009). The validity and reliability of an instrument to assess children’s outdoor play in various locations. Journal of Science & Medicine in Sport, 12(5), 579–582. doi:10.1016/j.jsams.2008.09.001
28.
WellsN. M.EvansG. W. (2003). Nearby nature. Environment and Behavior, 35(3), 311–330. doi:10.1177/0013916503035003001
29.
WongS.BerneyR.HarrisR.RegnierV. (2014). Child’s play designing play spaces that support healthy cognitive development in children. [Master’s thesis, University of Southern California].
30.
WoolleyH.LoweA. (2013). Exploring the relationship between design approach and play value of outdoor play spaces. Landscape Research, 38(1), 53–74. doi:10.1080/01426397.2011.640432
31.
ZiglerE. F.Bishop-JosefS. J. (2006). The cognitive child versus the whole child: lessons from 40 years of head start. In Play = learning: How play motivates and enhances children's cognitive and social-emotional growth (pp. 15–35). Oxford University Press.
