Participatory planning with young children : a mixed methods approach to planning and evaluating outdoor play environments in early learning and child care centres

This dissertation examines the relationship between children's outdoor play and affordances in early learning and child care (ELCC) centres through a convergent mixed methods study design. Empirical data were collected as part of the PROmoting Early Childhood Outside study, conducted at ELCC centres in the Greater Vancouver region. Quantitative data examined the association between children's outdoor play behaviour and environmental play features using observational behaviour mapping. Qualitative data sought to understand children's perspectives of their outdoor play through a participatory approach informed by a scoping review of participatory methods with young children. Quantitative and qualitative data were integrated through triangulation of strand-level results and the construction of a joint display table synthesizing findings into meta-inferences by play feature. Quantitative findings indicate that play features such as gardening areas, playhouses, climbing structures, and tricycle paths enhanced opportunities for diverse forms of outdoor play, while open play areas offered fewer opportunities for varied play. Children's qualitative perspectives identified environmental features contributing to play affordances, including sandboxes, tricycle paths, gardening areas, playhouses, climbing structures, water features, and stumps and logs. Mixed methods integration identified five cross-strand patterns: the role of ergonomic design barriers in suppressing high-value affordances; topographic variation as an affordance for self-regulated risk-taking; spatial proximity as a precondition for cross-feature play; educators as simultaneous enablers and constraints of affordance actualization; and loose parts as the primary mechanism through which children extend the affordance potential of fixed equipment. To theorize instances where children perceive an affordance yet are structurally prevented from actualizing it, this dissertation introduces the affordance gap — an original theoretical concept extending Kyttä's elaboration of Gibson's theory of affordances. The affordance gap framework identifies design-imposed barriers as a mediating variable in the affordance actualization process. Five affordance gap types are introduced: ergonomic, access, spatial, institutional, and perceptual barriers. This dissertation advances understanding of how outdoor play environments can be designed to better support children’s outdoor play, offering a conceptual foundation for future research across fields including early child development, urban planning, landscape architecture, and public health, and a practical tool to address design-imposed barriers in children's outdoor spaces.