The Use of Play as Learning Strategy for Skills Development in Early Childhood Education for Selected Pre -primary Schools in Ikorodu Lga of Lagos State

Proposal on The Use of Play as Learning Strategy for Skills Development in Early Childhood Education for Selected Pre -primary Schools in Ikorodu Lga of Lagos State

Purpose of the Study:

The main purpose of the study will be to determine the influence of play on the skills development of preschool children in Lagos State.

Specifically the study will determine the:

1. Influence of construction play toys on the language skills development of preschool children
2. Influence of construction play toys on the social skills development of preschool children.
3. Influence of manipulative play toys on the problem solving skills development of preschool children
4. Influence of manipulative play toys on the creative skills development of preschool children

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE

The concept of children

A child is a young human being unable to help him or herself and so needs adult assistance and support to survive. The child is a young person from birth to the age of full physical development (World Book Encyclopedia, 1995). Groman (1995) defined a child as a person between 18 months and 13 years of age. The definition of a child in the Nigeria context is always arbitrary and varies from one ethnic group to another due to lack of uniform system of customary laws in Nigeria (Azogu, 1991). In some parts of the world especially, in Nigeria, some cultures do have expectations and standards used to classify an individual as an adult. In the eastern part of Nigeria, some communities have―becoming of age‖ ceremonies, which initiate young adults into full recognition as adults. Therefore, for such situations the definition of a child is one who has not been initiated into adulthood through becoming of age ceremony.

In some ethnic groups, a boy remains a child until initiated into an age grade society or until he is old enough to contribute financially to community development. In other ethnic groups, childhood terminates at puberty. In nationwide study, parents felt that one who is dependent on the parents or cannot care for him or herself remains a child (Agua and Okagbue, 1996).

METHODOLOGY

This chapter will focus on the procedures that were used for the study. The procedures will be discussed under the following sub-headings: research design, area of the study, population, sample and sampling technique, instrument and method of data collection, validation of the instrument and data analysis techniques.

Design of the study

The ex-post-facto research design will be used in this study. The choice of this design will be informed by the fact that the researcher did not manipulate the variables since they would readily manifest themselves while the study will then determine the relationship between the dependent and independent variables. Ex Post Facto is also called Causal-Comparative Research design. In the context of this study the ex post facto design will be used to study two groups (Private and public preschools) which differ on an independent variable (Play toys) and hypotheses tested about differences on one or more dependent variables (social skills, language skills, creative skills and problems solving skills). Figure 1 below shows the diagrammatic representation of the variables.

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