Through children's own lenses: assessing risky play tendencies via a tablet-based interface

Risky play is increasingly recognized as a developmentally significant form of play that supports children's physical competence, emotional regulation, and risk-management skills, yet capturing children's own tendencies toward such play remains methodologically challenging. This study addresses this gap by introducing a tablet-based, pictorial assessment tool [the Digitized Willingness to Risk in Play Scale-Pictorial (d-WRiPS-P)] designed to assess preschool children's risky play tendencies through their own lenses.

A total of 198 Turkish children aged 5-6 years participated in the study. Both convenience sampling and maximum variation sampling methods were used to recruit participants for the group. In the study, the validity of the d-WRiPS-P was evaluated using CFA with WLSMV estimation, and its reliability was determined using Ordinal Omega;measurement invariance was tested across gender and upper/lower 27% temperament groups, and the scores of the WRiPS-P and d-WRiPS-P were compared using Pearson correlation and paired samples t-test.

This study provides evidence that the d-WRiPS-P is a valid and reliable tool for assessing risky play tendencies in 5-6-year-old children. Results support its three-factor structure, high construct validity, internal consistency, and measurement invarianceacross gender (at the scalar level) and temperamentsubgroups (activity and reactivity at the strict level).

The original contribution of this study lies in providing evidence for the validity of a digitized assessment tool that enables 5-6-year-old children to participate independently without adult assistance or literacy requirements, utilizing audio-narrated touchscreen technology. This independent administration offers standardized instructions and automates scoring, which may help promote consistency in data collection while reducing reliance on administrator input. Beyond its application in the Turkish context, the tool provides a standardized and scalable framework with potential for cross-cultural, multilingual studies and practical use by educators and researchers.