Abstract:

We are witnessing that in the last thirty or more years (Gray, 2011) there has been a sharp decrease in children’s free outdoor play in developed countries. Urbanization, the use of modern technology and the increased pressure on academic knowledge and learning outcomes since kindergarten, with an emphasis on children spending time in activities designed and carried out by adults, have challenged free outdoor play and learning of early and preschool aged children.

The quality of the institution and its context, as indicated by many modern research to which we refer in our work, depends on the image of a child that the preschool teacher has and the way he/she sees his/her role in child's development. Therefore, the attitudes of the preschool teacher, i.e. his/her educational paradigm, are extremely important for the quality promotion of children's development and directing them to new knowledge through free play.

In this research, we outline the importance of free play and outdoor learning as the basis of a child's development in early and preschool age, with a focus on preschool teacher who spends much of his/her time with children and his/her attitudes influence opportunities for children's quality outdoor activities. The aim of the research is to examine the attitudes of preschool teachers about the importance and obstacles to children's free play and learning outdoors with regard to the level of their acceptance of the modern educational paradigm.

The Questionnaire for the assessment of preschool teachers' attitudes about children's outdoor play was used for data collection. The questionnaire consists of three scales. Two scales examining preschool teachers 'attitudes about the importance and obstacles to children's outdoor play were specially constructed for the purposes of this research, while the third scale examining preschool teachers' educational paradigm was taken from the Questionnaire for the assessment of the culture of the educational institution designed within scientific research project Culture of an educational institution as a factor in the co-constructing knowledge of the Faculty of Teacher Education, University of Rijeka.

The research was conducted during April and May, 2020 on the convenience sample of 275 preschool teachers employed in kindergartens of the City of Zagreb. Given that at the time of the research due to the epidemic caused by the COVID-19 virus in the Republic of Croatia, a complete lockdown was in force, direct survey of preschool teachers was not possible, so we approached the online survey via IKA application.

The results showed that preschool teachers' attitudes about the importance of children's stay outdoors, as well as specific outdoor practices they apply in their daily work, are statistically significantly positively related to their acceptance of the modern educational paradigm. Also, based on the obtained results, we conclude that preschool teachers who adhere to the modern educational paradigm are less prone to the influence of external factors (attitudes of parents, professional associates, colleagues ...) in making their own decisions about staying with children outdoors compared to preschool teachers who adhere traditional educational paradigm. They also to a lesser extent consider adverse weather conditions (rain, snow and low temperatures) obstacles for children to stay outdoors.

Keywords:

Children's play, outdoor learning, outdoor space, preschool teacher.