Abstract:

The aim of this study was to examine if learning environment affects preschool children’s performance. Particularly, whether the presence of the classmates affects preschool children’s performance. 56 preschool children (24 boys and 32 girls) with Mage=5.5 years participated in this study, coming from 5 kindergarten schools. Preschool children were asked to play a game two times under two different learning conditions. At the first condition, children played the game in a classroom without the presence of their classmates and at the second condition children played the game in the classroom with the presence of classmates. The results showed that preschool children had higher performance when they played the game with the presence of their classmates. The presence of classmates maybe subconsciously leads children to feel that there will be a comparison from their classmates after their trial and for this reason they try to overpass their classmates.

Keywords:

Childhood, learning environment, performance.