Okul Öncesi Dönem Çocuklarının Doğaya Yakınlık (Biyofili) Seviyelerinin Araştırılması

Abstract

The current research aims to investigate 60-66 months-old preschool children's affinity towards nature (biophilia) and to identify the reasons of their positive (biophilic) and negative (biophobic) reactions to a natural stimulus. This research also aims to explore if preschool children's levels of biophilia differ depending on two factors: the levels of naturalness of the outdoor environments of the early child care centers that children enrolled and the gender. The sample of the study consisted of 105 children selected from four public preschools located in the same district of Ankara. The sub-sample included 20 children who were randomly selected from the main sample. 'Children's Biophilia Measure', which has 22 items, was used to explore the participants' levels of affinity towards nature. According to the results, children's levels of biophilia was pretty high and did not differ based on their school type (the level of naturalness of the school garden) and gender. It was found that the culture was the prominent factor affecting the reasons of the children's biophilic and biophobic responses. In particular, mothers had an important impact on their children's positive or negative responses to a natural stimulus. Therefore, further research is suggested to be planned considering the possible effect of mothers' demographic information (age, educational level, time spent outdoors, living environment where mothers spent their childhood etc.) on children's biophilic or biophobic preferences. As a further research, it is also suggested to investigate biophilia of children who are coming from different cultures. (English) [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]