Peer-reviewed article
Parental perceptions of risky play and preschooler's motor creativity: mastery motivation as mediator and gender as moderator.
Karaca NH, Gözüm AİC, Kaya ÜÜ, Uzun H, Metin Ş ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined how parents' views of risky play affect preschoolers' ability to move creatively and solve problems through movement. The research involved 367 children aged 4-6 years in Turkey and found that children who engaged in more risky play showed greater motor creativity. The study identified mastery motivation—children's drive to take on challenges and persist—as the mechanism through which risky play supports creative movement. Importantly, boys showed stronger connections between risky play and motor creativity than girls.
Key points
- Children engaging in higher levels of risky play exhibited significantly greater motor creativity
- Mastery motivation functions as a significant mediator between risky play and motor creativity
- Parental perceptions serve as environmental gatekeepers that shape play contexts
- Significant gender differences were observed, with boys displaying stronger associations between risky play, mastery motivation, and motor creativity compared to girls
- Risky play fosters early childhood embodied problem-solving and adaptive movement patterns
Limitations
The study is cross-sectional and cannot establish causation, only associations. The research was conducted in Turkey with typically developing preschoolers, so findings may not generalize to other cultural contexts or children with developmental differences.
Abstract
Introduction Risky play, characterized by activities involving uncertainty, excitement, and moderate physical risk, is essential for children's cognitive, emotional, and motor development. However, the precise pathways through which it impacts motor creativity, along with the underlying psychological mechanisms, remain insufficiently explored. This study investigates the direct relationship between parental perceptions of risky play and preschoolers' motor creativity, examining the mediating role of mastery motivation and the moderating effect of gender. Methods Data were collected from 367 typically developing preschoolers (aged 48-72 months) across public preschools in Türkiye. The proposed moderated mediation framework was evaluated using path analysis within Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Results Structural analysis demonstrates that children engaging in higher levels of risky play exhibit significantly greater motor creativity, confirming that physically and cognitively stimulating environments promote adaptive movement patterns and creative problem-solving. Furthermore, mastery motivation functions as a significant mediator, indicating that the sense of challenge and persistence inherent in risky play enhances children's intrinsic drive to explore and refine motor skills, thereby boosting creative expression. Significant gender moderation was also observed, with boys displaying stronger associations between risky play, mastery motivation, and motor creativity compared to girls. Discussion The study underscores that risky play actively fosters early childhood motor creativity and embodied problem-solving. Crucially, the findings highlight that parental perceptions serve as vital environmental gatekeepers, shaping play contexts that can either constrain or dynamically support child autonomy, robust exploration, and safe risk-taking.