Metaphors of pre-school teacher candidates and pre-school teachers about the concept of play and toy

Abstract EN

Play and toys have important roles in children’s cognitive, emotional, social, and physical development.

Plays and toys support child’s development in all aspects.

This view is widely shared by scientific and media publications.

The aim of this study is finding out, with the metaphor technique, the impressions and images of preschool teachers and teacher candidates about “play” and “toy”.

The study group consists of 100 preschool teacher candidates who are currently undergraduate students in the Department of Preschool Education Program in Ahi Evran University and 100 preschool teachers who work in central districts of Kırşehir during 2014-2015 academic years.

The data obtained were analyzed in accordance with the qualitative research model “phenomenology”.

The data analyzed made up 11 categories reflecting the images of the teachers regarding “play” and 10 categories about “toy”.

The most commonly used metaphors for “play” are “the power of child’s creativity and supporting his/her Imaginary” and “learning tool”.

The most commonly used metaphor for “toy” is “a basic and an essential material for child (cognitive and educational) development” and “Discovering imaginaries and creativeness”.

Both preschool teachers and preschool teacher candidates used positive metaphors about play and toys