The Relationships Between Children's Emotional Competence and Play Behavior

The purposes of this study were to assess children's emotional competence, to examine whether there was a difference in children's emotional competence according to their gender, and to investigate the relationship between children's emotional competence and their play behavior. The subjects of this study were 104 four-year-old children(56 boys, 48 girls). Collected data were analyzed by frequency, percentage, means, standard deviation and Pearson's correlation. The results were as follows : First, there was meaningful correlation among the emotional competence measured by teacher, the understanding and expression of emotion and the emotional regulation measured by mother. Second, there was difference in children's emotional competence according to gender. Specifically, girls showed better competence in the socio-behavioral emotional competence and the understanding and expression of emotion than boys. Third, the dramatic play and the group play had some meaningful correlation with the emotional competence measured by teacher and the understanding and expression of emotion measured by mother.