Okul öncesi öğretmenlerinin oyunseverlik özellikleri ve oyunseverlik ile ilgili görüşleri.

The purpose of the current study is to investigate in-service teachers’ playfulness traits and their views about playfulness. In this frame, some variables which have a possible effect on teacher’s playfulness were examined in the study. The study was designed as a mixed method design. The quantitative part of the mixed method consisted of 485 in-service teachers with 20 teachers in the qualitative part. The Adult Playfulness Trait Scale was used for the aim of collect data of the quantitative part. Afterwards, the qualitative part was conducted to take the teachers’ views on playfulness in the qualitative part. The results indicated that there was no significant difference between the years of experience, age of the teacher, number of children in the classroom, attending play course, attending professional development activities about play and playfulness. However, there was a significant difference between educational background, attending volunteer activities, type of school and playfulness. In addition, most of the teachers defined playfulness as “liking play”. The teachers explained their play habits in the classroom. They are active in terms of play in the classroom and the teachers participated in children’s play. Thus, co-player is the favorite role among these teachers in activity times. Finally, the teachers stated that personality and responsibility negatively affect playfulness. The study result could contribute to the field literature in terms of explaining some factors of playfulness and early childhood in-service teachers’ views on playfulness. According to result of the study, play course and professional development activities about play might contain less theoretical content.M.S. - Master of Scienc