The interrelation between preschool teachers’ play support quality and their level of reflection

<p><strong>Context and relevance</strong>. Despite the widely recognized importance of play support in preschool age, the actual quality of conditions for play development remains low. Researchers highlight teachers’ distorted understanding of play, difficulties in setting pedagogical goals, and the replacement of genuine play with play forms. In the article, pedagogical reflection is considered one of the factors ensuring the effectiveness of play support. Pedagogical reflection is understood as the process of going beyond immediate activities to analyze them, highlighting difficult situations and making sense of them. <strong>Objective </strong>is to analyze the interrelation between the play support quality and the level of development of pedagogical reflection. <strong>Hypothesis.</strong> The quality of play support is interrelated with the level of development of pedagogical reflection. <strong>Methods and materials.</strong> Play support quality was assessed based on video recordings of plays provided by teachers (39 teachers), the level of reflection was assessed based on the teachers’ comments on these videos. Qualitative and quantitative data analysis was used. <strong>Results. </strong>Most teachers are characterized by low level of play support (5,8, sd = 2,5, med = 6) and a low level of pedagogical reflection (4, sd = 3,6, med = 3,5). Correlation analysis revealed a significant relation between the play support quality and the level of development of reflection (r = 0,71, p < 0,01). <strong>Conclusions. </strong>The teachers who play with children and create conditions to support play are often more accurate in identifying the strengths and deficits of children's play, setting adequate pedagogical tasks, and identifying their own deficits and those of the children in joint play.</p>