Children's Play on Trestles Differing in Complexity: A Study of Play Equipment Design

Abstract

A need exists for new efforts at improving play equipment design. Recent research demonstrating the importance of stimulus complexity should be particularly relevant to such efforts. This study examined the responses of preschool children to a traditional play object design, a climbing trestle, presented in an intact and a modified (complexified) state. Children were found to prefer the modified trestle having the greatest amount of functional complexity. The attractant power of complexity in play equipment design was thus affirmed as was the critical importance of systematic follow-up evaluation of children's responses to traditional and innovative play object designs.