Effects of Pretend Play on Pre-Primary Pupils’ Emotional Skills in Bassa, Plateau State

Abstract

The study examined effects of pretend play on pre-primary pupils’ emotional skills in Bassa, Plateau State. The purpose of the study was to determine the improvement that preschoolers’ emotional skills will have when exposed to pretend play opportunities. The research design that was used was the quasi experimental non equivalent pre-test post-test research design. The population of the study consisted of 4,052 pre-primary pupils of 76 public pre-primary schools. The study sample comprised of 40 pupils in two intact classes which were the experimental and control groups respectively. The instrument for data collection was the Emotional Skill Rating Scale (ESRS) and data were analyzed using the One-Way Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA) of two independent samples. The findings of the study revealed that the emotional skills mean scores of the experimental group were higher than the emotional skills mean scores of the control group. It was recommended that pre-primary teachers should deliberately create pretend play opportunities for children to engage in spontaneous play activities with their peers,  in order that the requisite emotional skills for lifelong success will be acquired.

Keywords:  Pretend Play, Pre-primary Pupils, Emotional Skills