Is Digital Play Popular? Examining Parents' Play Preferences for Their Children

Digital play has entered into houses and the lives of children and brought many debates with it. In spite of debates the number of research is very limited. For this reason, the purpose of this research is to examine parents’ play preferences for their children by focusing on the digital play. 351 parents having a child attending preschools participated in this research. The data were collected through the Parental Play Preference Scale developed by the paired comparison method. Two-way ANOVA and MANOVA were used for analysis. Research findings showed that parents mostly favored constructive play and digital play received the lowest preference scores. It has been determined that education and working conditions of parents and age and gender of children were influential on play preferences. Play preferences and daily times for different play types were found to be related. In the light of these findings, home-based awareness-raising activities and the creation and dissemination of social areas were suggested