2-3Res. Assist., Marmara University, Atatürk Education Faculty, Istanbul, Turkey ... exposure to media, technology and television screens (Sharkins et al., 2016).
Chapter 14
Research on the Relation between Spare Time Activity Duration and Negative Social Behavior of Preschoolers Rengin ZEMBAT1, Şeyma DEĞİRMENCİ2 and Hilal YILMAZ3 1
Prof. Dr., Marmara University, Atatürk Education Faculty, Istanbul, Turkey. Res. Assist., Marmara University, Atatürk Education Faculty, Istanbul, Turkey
2-3
INTRODUCTION Adaptation to life is one of the most important indicator of social and emotional development of preschoolers. Social skills take an important tole in social-emotional development of the children. Social skills are abilities which allow children to communicate, solve problems, make decisions, make use of spare time, and initiate and maintain positive social relations with people around them. Development of social skills should create opportunities for children to learn social relations and spend time with other children (Şahin, 2010). Social skills consist of the environment in which the child is living and the effects of that environment on the child. Factors such as socio-cultural environment, socioeconomic level, parentchild interaction, parent educational status, gender, family type, sibling relations, peer relations, school-teacher relations and mass medium are effective on improving social skills (Koçak, 2012). In the absence of social skills, negative behaviors such as aggression are developed (Acun Kapıkıran et al., 2006). For children who have emotional and behavioral disorder, socials skills mean a set of behaviors which are important for and effective on the life of the individual. These behaviors are social competence, negative social behaviors and social adaptation. Negative social behaviors are the ones that prevent the child from socializing and let the child stay away from other individuals (Merrell, 1993). Emergence of negative social behaviors can be attributed to the fact that children are away from peer interaction (Kara & Çam, 2007) and that they can not socialize with the individual in their environment (Özcan, 2016). It is possible for an individual to exhibit positive social behavior and eliminate negative social behaviors with an environment designed according to development of her/him. Preschool period is a critical term in which the children try to adopt their environment, make effort to be able to interact with the society they live in and start to improve basic skills and social behaviors. The child understands the world better and adopts the society easily and effectively with these skills and behaviors. Social, emotional, linguistic, cognitive and motor development and self-care ability improve depending on the interaction with adults and peers around (Arslan, 2007). In this period, if the child spends the time with computer and television rather than the peers and family, it would impact her/his development negatively. Today, especially children living in metropolises have difficulty in communicating with their peers except the family. It is known that the children growing up in an 148
environment that they don't interact with their peers, have deficiencies in socail and emotional development. When it is considered that communication and interaction with the relatives and neighbors are not sufficient in metropolises, there is limited number of individuals that the children can interact with. Except these, children have to spend their time in home because of physical insufficiency of parks and playground and safety deficiency in neighborhood and streets. This lead to especially preschoolers become isolated and interest in computer/television games. So that, the children who are able to interact with their peers in open air, become passive players with computer/television games (Özcan, 2016). This situation is also reflected in the social behavior of children. The way in which leisure time is spend in the preschool period is an important measure for the development and learning of the child, as well as for the positive contribution to the development of the child's social skills (Gilligan, 2000) and affect the adult life of the child (Lager, 2016). Preschool children spend a part of their day in educational institutions. The remaining period is the time they spend as leisure activities (Lupu et al., 2013). The most common activities in which children spend their leisure time are watching television, playing computer games, and spending time in the open air (Lupu et al., 2013). It is stated that children spend most of their time at home and on their own (Cherney & London, 2006), mainly because of the conditions of our era, while the children have spent their spare time with their parents and outdoor before the 21st century (Ying, 2003). There is a lack of information and research on the long-term effects of exposure to media, technology and television screens (Sharkins et al., 2016). Studies conducted with pre-school children show that children spend most of their time sitting in pre-school institutions (Hinkley & Brown, 2014), while 5-year-old children spend their spare time watching TV at home (Xu et al., 2016). It has been stated that exposure to the screen has a negative effect on the parent-child interaction and disrupts the child's social-emotional development (Radesky & Christakis, 2016). With this study, it is possible to provide positive social behaviors for pre-school children by organizing activities that will enable children to obtain their rich experiences by determining activity periods of their leisure time. From this point of view, it has been thought that examining the activity periods and negative social behaviors of pre-school children's leisure time will contribute to the development of social skills of the children in this period. Considering all these factors, the aim of the research is to investigate the relation between the activity periods and the negative social behaviors of the preschool children's leisure time. In line with this general objective, the following questions were tried to be answered: What is the average daily amount of time children spend on computers, in the open air and on television? Do negative social behaviors of children differ significantly depending on their genders? Do negative social behaviors of children differ significantly depending on their ages? 149
Do negative social behaviors of children differ significantly depending on their daily average time spent on computer? Do negative social behaviors of children differ significantly depending on their daily average time spent in open air? Do negative social behaviors of children differ significantly depending on their daily average time spent on watching television? METHOD Model of the research In this study, it is aimed to determine the relationship between the duration of activities and the negative social behaviors of 48-72 months pre-school children's leisure time. For this purpose, relational screening model is used in the research as quantitative research methods. The relational screening model does not provide a true cause-and-effect relationship, but allows the prediction of the other when an alternative state is known. Study group The study group of the study was comprised of 214 children as 92 girls (48%) and 122 boys (57%), 48-72 months old, who attended pre-primary education institutions located in the provinces of Kağıthane and Bayrampaşa on the European side and from Kadıköy and Üsküdar on the Anatolian side of Istanbul in 2016-2017 academic year. Of the children, 42 (19.6%) were 4 years old, 87 (40.7%) were 5 years old and 85 (39%) were 6 years old. Data collection tools Information form In the "Information Form" created by the researchers, includes the demographic characteristics of the children (gender, age, time spent by the child for TV / computer / outdoor). Negative Social Behavior Scale School Social Behavior Scales was developed by Kenneth W. Merrell in 1993 in accordance with the five-point Likert model, allowing classroom teachers or other teachers in the school to assess students in the pre-primary and primary school years. The scales are composed of sixty five items totally. Scale is comprised of two forms as Form A: Social Competence and Form B: Negative Social Behaviors. There are thirty-two items on three subscales in "Social Competence Scale", as "Relationship between Individuals" (fourteen items), "Self-Control Ability" (ten items) and "Academic Skills" (eight items). In the "Negative Social Behavior Scale" there are thirty-three items collected on three subscales: "Aggressor-Nervous" (fourteen items), "Antisocial-Aggressive" (ten items) and "Destructive-Demanding" (nine items). The scale was adopted to Turkish by Yukay-Yüksel (2009). In the adaptation study, the data obtained from the student and the teacher were obtained from the analysis of linguistic equivalence, item total, item residual analysis, confirmatory factor analysis and criterion validity of the "School Social Behavior Scales" (SSBS). Within the scope of this study, "Negative Social Behavior Scale" 150
which is the subscale of "School Social Behavior Scale" was used. Two scales in the original form of SSBS and Cronbach α fold for each subscale were calculated. The Cronbach α reliability coefficients obtained from the subscales ranged from .94 to .98. Reliability values between .91 and .98 were obtained from Cronbach α, Spearman Brown and Guttman Split-Half techniques. Reliability values between .91 and .98 were obtained from Cronbach α, Spearman Brown and Guttman Split-Half techniques. The Cronbach's alpha coefficient for the subscale of the "Social Social Behavior Scale" of the School Social Behavior Scale used in this study was calculated as .97. Data collection and analysis In the process of data collection, permission was first obtained from Istanbul Provincial Directorate of National Education, then to pre-school institutions selected in accordance with easy accessibility principle, and after the necessary permission was obtained from school principals, it started to be applied. The "Information Form" used in the scope of the study was delivered to the parents through the teachers. The "Negative Social Behavior Scale" for the same child was filled in by the teacher after the forms filled in by the parents who participated in the study on a volunteer basis. The data of the study were analyzed by SPSS 20.0 program. Before going into the analysis of the research data, deficiencies and mistakes in the dataset were determined and necessary corrections were made. RESULTS Table 1: Frequency and percentage values of pre-school children according to their activity time Average time per day 0-1 Hour 1-2 Hour 2-3 Hour 3 Hours and over Total
Computer
101 49
% 56.4 27.4
19 10 179
10.6 5.6 100
Outdoor
TV
88 82
% 42.7 39.8
38 88
% 19 44
26 10 206
12.6 4.9 100
54 20 200
27 10 100
According to Table 1, 56.4% of the 179 children who are PCs from pre-school children participated in the research were 0-1 hours per day, 27,4% 1-2 hours, 10,6% 2-3 hours and 5.6% spend 3 hours and more on computer during leisure time. Of the 206 children who were found to spend their free time in the open air, 42.7% had a daily average of 0-1 hours, 39.8% 1-2 hours, 12.6% 2-3 hours and 4.9% 3 hours and over. Of the 200 children who spend their free time watching television, 19% are watching 0-1 hours a day, 44% 1-2 hours, 27% 2-3 hours and 10% 3 hours a day.
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Table 2: T-Test Results According to Gender Variable of Total Scores Received by Children on the Negative Social Behavior Scale Gender Girl Boy *p
