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Play is an exceedingly complex phenomenon which involves diverse ideas and experiences. Play, whose definition varies according to individuals and time, is conceptualized by educators as: the child’s method of learning unteachable subjects through his/her own experience. Therefore, play is an essential resource for the development of personality factors relating to intellect, ability, socialization and ingenuity. Alongside these benefits, it enhances children’s social adaptation, physical and cognitive development, and motor skills. During play, emotions and thoughts are expressed freely, while the innermost realm of the personality is revealed. Teachers will also observe these revelations effortlessly and facilitate children’s active engagement further through their awareness of play’s effects in all areas and by adopting appropriate approaches in their educational settings. Like a researcher, teachers need to observe children and help bring out their areas of interests accordingly. As such, the study essentially aims to identify the perceptions of Faculty of Education students from different departments toward ‘play’ in terms of several variables. Having utilized quantitative and qualitative research methods concomitantly in a mixed-methods approach, the study’s context is made up of the Education Faculties in the Northern Cypriot universities of Eastern Mediterranean University, Girne American University and the European University of Lefke wherein a total number of 196 teacher candidates, of which 151 are females and 45 are males, comprises the research participant group. In the study, data was gathered through a questionnaire developed by the researcher including items of qualitative and quantitative nature, with the intention of investigating the perceptions of ‘play’ held by Faculty of Education students from different departments. The quantitative data collected is subjected to t-test and ANOVA analyses to compare these perceptions in view of gender, program of study and play-related course status variables; whereas for qualitative data, content analysis is undertaken. The results indicate that the majority of participants were female (77%). 44.4% of the whole group was identified as vocational school graduates. 87% of the participants reported previous enrollment on play-related courses and specified these as Vocal and Musical Education. The study’s results also show that 23.6% percent of the participants defined play as entertainment while 24.6% of the group perceived it as a learning method. In addition, the great majority of the participants (99.5%) identified play as a suitable method to be used in educational settings and approximately half of the group (49%) considered themselves moderately adept at utilizing play for pedagogical purposes. The t-test performed to identify whether the participants’ play perception scores varied suggestively according to their programs of study revealed a statistically significant and meaningful variation in the reported perceptions of play across the different program of studies represented (t=3,978; p |
