Safety on the Playground: Mechanisms Through Which Adult Supervision Might Prevent Child Playground Injury

Improving Recess through Collaboration: Exploring the Facilitators and Barriers to Sustaining Positive Playground Behavior

BACKGROUND

School recess quality is vital to children's social and emotional skill development. However, there is a research-to-practice gap where academic findings are ineffectively translated back to schools. The aims of this study were to examine how a co-designed intervention would impact negative behaviors observed during recess and to explore the facilitators and barriers to recess implementation over the course of a school year.

METHODS

Utilizing a research-practice partnership, the authors collaborated with staff at an elementary school to design, implement, and assess an intervention focused on improving recess quality. The intervention offered training in research-supported recess practices through professional development training and teaching students transitions and games. The school's recess behavioral report log of negative playground behaviors across the academic year and notes from recess staff meetings were analyzed.

RESULTS

Quantitative results pointed to a stable decrease in negative playground behaviors post-intervention compared to pre-intervention. Qualitative analyses suggest school leadership and practitioners should focus on "reculturing" recess prior to making structural changes, and empowering recess staff to sustain change.

CONCLUSION

Prior to considering interventions at recess, there is a need to assess both school and recess culture. In doing so, reculturing around the importance of recess during the school day and the roles of adults in the process is needed to ensure the sustainability of any changes made.

Parent Mobile Phone Use in Playgrounds: A Paradox of Convenience

Creating social and physical environments that promote good health is a key component of a social determinants approach. For the parents of young children, a smartphone offers opportunities for social networking, photography and multi-tasking. Understanding the relationship between supervision, mobile phone use and injury in the playground setting is essential. This research explored parent mobile device use (MDU), parent–child interaction in the playground, parent attitudes and perceptions towards MDU and strategies used to limit MDU in the playground. A mixed-methods approach collected naturalistic observations of parents of children aged 0–5 (n = 85) and intercept interviews (n = 20) at four metropolitan playgrounds in Perth, Western Australia. Most frequently observed MDU was scrolling (75.5%) and telephone calls (13.9%). Increased duration of MDU resulted in a reduction in supervision, parent–child play and increased child injury potential. The camera function offered the most benefits. Strategies to prevent MDU included turning to silent mode, wearing a watch and environmental cues. MDU was found to contribute to reduced supervision of children, which is a risk factor for injury. This is an emerging area of injury prevention indicating a need for broader strategies addressing the complex interplay between the social determinants and the developmental younger years.

School recess, social connectedness and health: a Canadian perspective

Children need opportunities to establish positive social connections at school, yet many school playgrounds are challenged by social conflict that can undermine these connections. When children's social needs go unmet, the resultant feelings of loneliness, isolation and self-doubt can cumulatively lead to mental and physical illness. Because recess is typically the only time during the school day that children are free to socialize and play, we propose a more thoughtful way of thinking about it: from the lens of belongingness. Schools are, historically, designed for instruction. We argue, however, that we need to attend to children's social needs at school. We highlight current research from social neuroscience, belonging and social connectedness in order to delineate the pathways between daily school recess and developmental health trajectories. We then consolidate an array of research on play, social interaction and school change to suggest four areas that could benefit from consideration in research, practice and policy: (i) the culture of recess, (ii) the importance of healthy role models on the playground, (iii) the necessity of activities, options and variety during recess and (iv) the significance of space and spatial layout (indoor and outdoor). We bridge our discussion with the conception of health as described in the Ottawa Charter and emphasize the need to build alliances across sectors to assist schools in their efforts to support children's overall health needs.

School satisfaction and social relations: Swedish schoolchildren's improvement suggestions

OBJECTIVES

The aim was to explore schoolchildren's views on how to increase school satisfaction and improve social relations among peers at school.

METHOD

Improvement suggestions were collected from school children aged 10-12 years with the help of a feedback model developed for the purpose. Qualitative content analysis was used.

RESULTS

Two categories emerged from the analysis: 'psychosocial climate', which included the subcategories 'adults' roles and responsibilities' and 'classmates' norms and values'; 'influence', which included the subcategories 'changes in the physical environment' and 'flexible learning'. The categories are seen as important to increase school satisfaction and improve social relations among peers at school.

CONCLUSION

Examining children's opinions is requested and promoted by the UN convention on the Rights of the Child. The findings contribute to the field by showing how school satisfaction and social relations might be improved, if the child perspective is considered in the planning of health promotion activities in school.

Cross-cultural adaptation and validation of the Portuguese version of the Parental Supervision Attributes Profile Questionnaire

OBJECTIVES

To cross-culturally adapt and validate the Portuguese version of the Parental Supervision Attributes Profile Questionnaire (PSAPQ). The PSAPQ is a measure of parental supervision, which has not been translated and adapted into any language other than English.

METHODS

The Portuguese version was the result of forward/backward translations, consensus panels and pretesting. Reliability and internal consistency were assessed using Cronbach's α, intraclass correlation coefficient (ICC) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) in adults with different educational levels.

RESULTS

Cronbach's α (α=0.70-0.79) and ICC (>0.75) were acceptable in three of four factors. The results of CFA (χ(2)/df=2.243; CFI=0.951; GFI=0.96; RMSEA=0.056; P(RMSEA ≤ 0.05)=0.222) suggest a good adjustment between the factors.

CONCLUSIONS

The Portuguese version of PSAPQ showed acceptable psychometric properties. This study evidenced some vulnerabilities of the fate subscale, emphasising the need for further investigation of the effects of the educational level of the parents.

Assessing injuries with proxies: implications for understanding concurrent relations and behavioral antecedents of pediatric injuries

OBJECTIVE

To examine the implications of using proxies of medically attended injuries (minor injuries and close calls) for understanding concurrent relations among-and behavioral antecedents of-pediatric injuries.

METHODS

Participants were 812 children from the NICHD Study of Early Child Care. Measures of externalizing behavior, maternal depression, SES, and the home environment were examined as prospective predictors of minor injuries, close calls, and medically attended injuries.

RESULTS

Minor injuries and close calls were associated with medically attended injuries concurrently. Regression equations revealed different prospective predictors across the three outcome variables.

CONCLUSIONS

This study was the first to examine concurrent associations among minor injuries, close calls, and medically attended injuries. Prospective antecedents of each injury assessment were also examined. The present findings signify the importance of distinguishing between these different methods of assessing pediatric injury. The study also illustrated that different analytic strategies were needed to represent observed data of each outcome variable.

Do visually salient stimuli reduce children's risky decisions?

Children tend to overestimate their physical abilities, and that tendency is related to risk for unintentional injury. This study tested whether or not children estimate their physical ability differently when exposed to stimuli that were highly visually salient due to fluorescent coloring. Sixty-nine 6-year-olds judged physical ability to complete laboratory-based physical tasks. Half judged ability using tasks that were painted black; the other half judged the same tasks, but the stimuli were striped black and fluorescent lime-green. Results suggest the two groups judged similarly, but children took longer to judge perceptually ambiguous tasks when those tasks were visually salient. In other words, visual salience increased decision-making time but not accuracy of judgment. These findings held true after controlling for demographic and temperament characteristics.