Delvecchio Elisa, Li Jian-Bin, Pazzagli Chiara, Lis Adriana, Mazzeschi Claudia
Department of Philosophy, Social Sciences and Education, University of Perugia Perugia, Italy.
Department of Developmental Psychology and Socialization, University of Padova Padova, Italy.
Front Psychol. 2016 Nov 17;7:1833. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01833. eCollection 2016.
Pretend play has a central role for children's development and psychological well-being. However, there is a paucity of standardized and valid measures specifically devoted to assess the core domains involved in play activities in preschool and primary school children. The Affect in Play Scale-Preschool (4-5 years) and the Affect in Play Scale-Preschool Extended Version (6-10 years) are semi-structured parallel tools designed to explore child's cognitive and affective processes using a standardized play task. The current study administered this 5-min play task to 538 Italian children aged 4-10. The purposes were to compare play abilities in boys vs. girls and in preschool vs. primary school children, to correlate pretend play with divergent thinking and to evaluate the structural validity of the measure along the considered age span. No differences, excepting for Organization, were found between boys and girls, whereas school age children reported higher play abilities then the younger ones. External validity was assessed using correlational analysis with the divergent thinking task (the Alternate Uses Test) for preschoolers and primary school-aged children, in line with findings from Manova. Construct validity, assessed through the Confirmatory Factor Analysis, showed good fits for the two-factor model with cognitive and affective factor for both the Affect in Play Scale-Preschool and its Extended Version. A multi-group factor analysis suggested a partial invariance of the two-factor model across preschool (4-5 years old) and primary school-aged (6-10 years old) children. Results supported the use of the Affect in Play Scale-Preschool and its Extended Version as adequate measures to assess the interplay of cognitive and affective skills in preschool and school age children. The discussion highlights clinical and research implications linked to the possibility to have a unique play task able to assess child's affective and cognitive abilities throughout a quite wide life span (from 4 to 10 years old).
假装游戏对儿童的发展和心理健康起着核心作用。然而，专门用于评估学龄前和小学儿童游戏活动所涉及核心领域的标准化且有效的测量工具却很匮乏。学龄前情感游戏量表（4 - 5岁）和学龄前情感游戏量表扩展版（6 - 10岁）是半结构化的平行工具，旨在通过标准化的游戏任务探索儿童的认知和情感过程。本研究对538名4 - 10岁的意大利儿童进行了这个5分钟的游戏任务。目的是比较男孩与女孩以及学龄前儿童与小学儿童的游戏能力，将假装游戏与发散性思维相关联，并评估该测量工具在考虑的年龄跨度内的结构效度。除了组织能力外，未发现男孩和女孩之间存在差异，而学龄儿童的游戏能力高于年幼儿童。通过与学龄前儿童和小学适龄儿童的发散性思维任务（替代用途测试）进行相关分析来评估外部效度，这与多变量方差分析的结果一致。通过验证性因素分析评估的结构效度表明，学龄前情感游戏量表及其扩展版的双因素模型（认知因素和情感因素）拟合良好。多组因素分析表明，双因素模型在学龄前儿童（4 - 5岁）和小学适龄儿童（6 - 10岁）中具有部分不变性。结果支持使用学龄前情感游戏量表及其扩展版作为评估学龄前和学龄儿童认知与情感技能相互作用的适当测量工具。讨论强调了与拥有一个能够在相当广泛的生命周期（从4岁到10岁）内评估儿童情感和认知能力的独特游戏任务的可能性相关的临床和研究意义。
