Analyzing the Factors that Affect Preschoolers' Parents' Choice of Toys

Teachers at schools and parents at home need toys to support children's psychomotor, cognitive, socioemotional and linguistic development during the period of play. In this respect, toys used in play are effective media for teaching children while at the same time entertaining them. The aim of this study is to analyze the factors that affect the preschoolers' parents' choice of toys in the Turkish context with respect to some variables, such as parents' education and their economic status. The sample of this study comprised 194 parents of preschoolers attending 5 different preschool institutions in Turkey and the toys they bought for their children. The instrument titled Toy Selection Preference Questionnaire (TSPQ) for preschoolers was developed by the researcher and used to analyze the data. In this survey ANOVA test in SPSS 15.0 was used to compare the dependent and independent variables of this research. The findings showed that there were significant differences between the parents' levels of education and the subdimensions of TSPQ including the cognitive, parents' and toy design perspectives, and there were also significant differences between the parents' economic status and the subdimensions of TSPQ comprising health, parents and toy design perspectives.