The purpose of this study was to gain understanding of preschool teachers’ beliefs about young children’s outdoor play and to describe individual teachers’ personal experiences with regard to outdoor play. For primary data collection, three in-depth individual interviews were administered and concept maps were collected as secondary data to portray individual participants’ beliefs and knowledge to supplement the findings of this study. For data analysis, Charmaz’s (2006) constructivist grounded theory was employed using two steps of coding. Major emerging themes generated from this study included: 1) Teachers value outdoor play for educational, developmental, and well-being purposes, 2) Teachers perceive that natural outdoor environments promote learning and development in their own unique ways, and 3) Teachers attempt to provide quality outdoor play by performing various roles during outdoor play. First, the preschool teachers’ beliefs about the value of outdoor play included promoting freedom. The teachers also perceived that outdoor play is beneficial for facilitating young children’s development in different domains, such as physical, social, emotional, and creative. Second, the preschool teachers’ beliefs about young children’s outdoor play in natural environments included benefits such as promoting hands-on learning, sensory development, and use of imagination and creativity. In addition, the teachers in this study perceived that interactive experiences in the natural environment enable young children to develop their sense of appreciation of nature. Third, the preschool teachers in this study served various roles for providing outdoor play. The teachers perceived being a safety supervisor as their most important role during outdoor play. Additionally, barriers for providing outdoor play were specified, and they appeared to be related to the teachers’ preparations and planning for providing outdoor play. The implications for researchers and practitioners will be discussed at the end of the presentation.
KEYWORDS: teacher beliefs, outdoor play, preschool, natural environments, learning and development
