Relationship of physical environment of public preschool classroom on children’s social interaction behaviour and spatial choice / Mansor Othman

A strong emphasis is put on preschool education programme by the
Malaysian Ministry of Education (MOE). However, it leans more towards
the non-physical rather than the physical aspects of preschools. There is a
scarcity of local reference on children’s environment-behaviour studies,
notably on the physical environment of preschool classroom and spatial
behaviour. Therefore, this research aimed to investigate this relationship.
The objectives of this study were to identify the current state of the
physical environment of public preschool classrooms (through the teachers’
perceptions) and to establish the types of social interaction behaviour
that the children engaged in (during free play) in their classrooms as
located both in urban and non-urban areas. Their spatial choices were
also observed. The preschool classrooms were spatially categorised into
highly, moderately and poorly defined through the experts’ opinions
survey. This study used the mixed method approach of questionnaire
surveys and unobtrusive, non-participating observation and behavioural
mapping methods. The questionnaire was adopted from Moore’s (1994,
2008) Children’s Physical Environment Rating Scale (CPERS) which was
administered to 330 preschool teachers who attended a series of MOE
workshops. The observations found that there exists five types of social
interaction behaviour and spatial choices that 494 children aged 5 to 6
years old engaged in during free-play periods in their classrooms in 20
public urban and non-urban preschools in the state of Selangor. The spatialdefinition
of classrooms in both locations was acquired through a directly
distributed questionnaire survey to 40 interior architects...