Playful Environment: The Literature Review on Environmental Affordances to Motivate Kids to Play (EAMKP)

Several studies of developmental psychology have emphasized the importance of childhood as one of the most effective periods of life. Play as a tool of acquiring experiences has a wonderful effect on child development. Through playing, children can communicate with the world around them. Child psychologists and environmental psychologists, by focusing on the interaction of humans and the environment, believe that play provides the opportunity for experience and direct interaction with environmental factors for a child. In this review, by using descriptive and analytical methods, descriptions about the concepts and theories of play, motivation, and environmental affordances have been surveyed. The proposed approach was based on Gibson’s Theory of Affordances (1979) describing an awareness of the environments and their functional significance or meaning. The main question was about the process of kids’ interaction with the environment through the environmental affordances to motivate kids to play. Kids tend to the physical environment to satisfy the playing need as intrinsic motivation. By studying the child's interactions in the play environments, the ability of the environment which can be entitled the environmental affordances to motivate kids to play (EAMKP) was achieved. More precisely, the quality of the elements and physical components of the environment as extrinsic motivation factors encourages kids to play, so kids are encouraged to play. Individual features, physical and socio-cultural environments were considered as the effective factors on kids’ motivation to play.