Abstract :
[en] The outdoor environment offers children large spaces and multiple opportunities for discovery that allow them to move, play, experiment, express themselves freely, and to assert their personality. According to experts it offers children many opportunities for challenging and risky play that are highly beneficial to their health, development and well-being. However, fear of accidents and the need for supervision lead many parents and caregivers to restrict children's access to outdoor activities. Adult’s attitudes toward children outdoor play are built on the basis of several correlates such as personal experience, education, sensitivity, socio demographic, environment or socio-cultural context. It leads to different ways of perceiving the situation which may explain why outdoor play is sometimes considered very differently from one person to another and from one culture to another. As children’s possibilities to play highly depends on adult’s analysis of the situation and consequent decisions, it seem critical to investigate about the mechanisms involved in adult’s decision-making in the context of outdoor play. In order to meet such research objectives an original photo-based questionnaire has been recently developed and used to explore attitudes of adults in different parental and childcare context and for different children age groups.
The concept of the questionnaire consists of presenting various outdoor play situations through the combination of a picture and a sentence describing a context that can be considered as risky for adults and that requires a decision-making process that may differ according to adult own representations. For each photo-based situation, participants are asked to answer questions related to their perceptions (perceived danger, perceived benefits, perceived competence of the children), own and children experience and permission to play outdoors. The use of photo-based situations facilitates the expression of responses while limiting the possibilities of confusion or over-interpretation that could be found in a questionnaire without pictures. Additionally, it aimed to create virtual situations that are as credible as possible to allow participants to project themselves into the situation and to facilitate the situation’s representations. It ensures that participants all refer to the same situation. This research methodology has been successfully used with parents and caregivers in belgium (ref) and in Scotland (ref). And the very positive results of the first studies seem to confirm the tool's relevance, but require the development of a methodological framework to enable the development of high-quality scientific research. The aim of this presentation is to provide an update on this original approach, to present the results of initial studies, to suggest a methodological framework and scientific perspectives.
