From indoor and outdoor environment to language achievement: The chain mediating role of psychological atmosphere and curriculum implementation

Abstract

Language acquisition by children depends on the learning environment when they were in kindergarten to some extent. The goals of this study were to find out the impact of the indoor and outdoor environment on children's language development. Structural equation modeling was adopted. Children randomly selected from 270 preschool classes of five provinces in China were recruited in this study (1642 children aged between 36 and 72 months). We concluded that language achievement of children cannot be directly predicted by indoor and outdoor facilities and play materials, and an intermediate transmission pathway was needed. As an intermediary variable, the curriculum implementation partially mediated the influence of the indoor learning center on children's language achievement. The psychological atmosphere and curriculum implementation have a chain mediation effect between indoor and outdoor facilities and play material quality and childhood language achievement, and the influence effect of indoors was different from that of outdoors. In terms of the influence of indoor learning center planning and play materials, the effect on children's language achievement accounted for 61.5%, while when it came to that of outdoor learning center facilities and equipment, it was 60.7%. This indicated that the impact of the indoor and outdoor environment on children's language development could not be ignored. The indoor environment was more dependent than the outdoor environment on the chain role played by class curriculum implementation, psychological atmosphere and curriculum implementation quality. Therefore, teachers should create a positive psychological atmosphere, organically combine the curriculum implementation with environmental planning and material delivery, cultivate a prepared language environment for children and support their active learning and development.