On Defining Play: An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Play and Various Play Criteria

SMITH, PETER K., and VOLLSTEDT, RALPH. On Defining Play: An Empirical Study of the Relationship between Play and Various Play Criteria. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1985, 56, 1042-1050. A number of criteria have been suggested for defining play, but no empirical study has been done to see whether observers actually use such criteria to identify play. 5 commonly quoted play criteria were applied by subjects to a videotape of nursery school children's behavior, rated separately for occurrence of play. Agreement among raters was moderate to substantial for the criteria Nonliterality, Positive Affect, and Flexibility, and fair for Means/Ends and Intrinsic Motivation. With the exception of Intrinsic Motivation, all were associated with ratings of play. A test was made of a specific model proposed by Krasnor and Pepler that play is best predicted by a combination of several criteria. The main feature of the model was supported in that the more criteria occurred simultaneously, the more certainly a judgment of play was implied. Some details of the model were not supported. Extensions of the methodology that was used are considered.