Journal of Advances in Education and Philosophy (JAEP)
Volume-3 | Issue-01 | 19-25
Original Research Article
Availability of Play Materials and Their Influence on Children Acquisition of Physical Skills in Koibatek Sub-County, Baringo County, Kenya
Chebutuk K. Mike, Dr. Mbera Peter G. Aiko
Published : Jan. 30, 2019
Abstract
Play contributes to learners developing physical skills, their understanding of different concepts, their ability to solve
problems, their self-confidence and motivation, and an awareness of the needs of others. The study was guided by this
objective: - To determine the availability of play materials and their influence on children acquisition of physical skills in
Koibatek Sub-County, Baringo County. The study was guided by experiential learning theory by Kolb. The researcher
adopted descriptive research design. The researcher targeted all the 250 ECDE centers in Koibatek Sub-county. Simple
random sampling was used to select 152 ECDE centers and purposively selected 152 ECDE teachers, one teacher from
each selected ECDE centers. Validity of the research tools were established by use of education experts at the university,
while reliability of the instruments was tested using pilot data and a co-efficient threshold of more than 0.70 accepted.
The data was collected using a questionnaire. Data findings were analyzed with the help of a Statistical Package for
Social Sciences (SPSS) and the results presented using tables, graphs and narrative. The study findings indicated that
there were adequate play materials in the ECDE centers. In addition, availability of play materials, significantly
influenced acquisition of physical skills (p=0.000), with the later contributing to 34.0% of the physical skills. The study
recommended enforcing the ECDE standard guidelines and deploying adequate, trained and qualified ECDE teachers to
implement curriculum. The researcher paid keen attention to research ethical issues and got the informed consent of the
respondents and guarded against plagiarism and ensured confidentiality.