Generations of Outdoor Play: The REPLAY Survey

This survey is informed by two complementary frameworks: the Socio-Ecological Model of Child Development (Bronfenbrenner, 1979), which situates children’s play within family, school and community systems; and the Play Sufficiency Framework (Welsh Government, 2013), emphasising environmental and policy supports for play. Together these frameworks justify the study’s focus on neighbourhood and school environments, comparing parental and grandparental experiences with those of children today. Design and Analytical Rationale This short survey balances high global reach with scholarly robustness. •Questions two and three measure generational change at the family and neighbourhood level, providing cross-cohort comparison. •Questions five and six capture the institutional level, reflecting how schooling structures influence outdoor play opportunities. •The attitudinal item (question seven) anchors perceptions within the societal level of the ecological model, linking beliefs to behaviour. •The open-ended question allows for inductive thematic analysis that identifies policy and environmental factors aligned with the Play Sufficiency Framework. •Together, these eight items create a dataset suitable for both quantitative trend analysis and qualitative insight across regions and roles. Analyses of the survey can include descriptive statistics, generational difference tests, and regression modelling of predictors of perceived outdoor play decline, supplemented by thematic coding of open responses. This design ensures rapid completion by participants while maintaining conceptual depth and international publication potential.