Beyond Free Play and Physical Activity: Assessing the Quality and Determinants of Outdoor Environments for Children

Access to high quality outdoor environments (OE)s has important implications for children’s developmental outcomes. Early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings provide an optimal opportunity for children to have access to OEs. The purpose of this study was to provide a description of OEs in ECEC settings and explore how characteristics of the activities that educators and children engaged in, indicators of structural quality, and temperature were related to quality in OEs. A total of 161 educators and 66 OEs across three age groups (i.e. 29 infant and toddlers, and 43 preschoolers) from 56 centers were observed in this study.Research Findings: Using multilevel modeling, we found a significant relationship between environments where educators were engaged in unstructured activities, specific indicators of structural quality (i.e. higher education, greater years of experience, increased salary, lower ratios), and lower temperature with higher quality of the OE. There were no differences in the quality of the OE based on whether educators were engaged in structured activities, educators had outdoor training, children were engaged in risky play, and the center’s for-profit status. Practice or Policy: Staff/child ratios, educator education, experience and pay are promising pathways to improving OE quality and should be examined in future research.