CHILD DEVELOPMENT KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN FACTORS IN TOY DESIGN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF POPULAR CHILDREN'S PRODUCTS by Alexandra Lopez July, 2012 Director of Thesis: Sandra Triebenbacher, PhD Major Department: Child Development and Family Relations Play reflects how children understand the world, and it also provides them with opportunities to learn and refine their social, emotional, motor, and problem-solving skills. Before designing a product such as a children's toy, it is important for the engineer to consider all of the tasks that users will be executing with the finished product. From a general human factors perspective, physical and cognitive operations are the primary categories of tasks that are deliberated. The purpose of this study is to assess if child development theory and knowledge informs the design process of those who create children’s products. Patents of toys (n=38) selected to be included in this study were analyzed to see if and how knowledge of child development was incorporated into the development of the product, as well as to evaluate if there have been any changes in the use of child development knowledge in toy design. The results indicated that toy patents in this study did utilize knowledge of child development and demonstrated a significant increase in the utilization of child development knowledge more frequently in contemporary toys, particularly in cognitive learning. Overall, there were strong correlations between the number of evidence pieces within the patent discussing various child development topics, thus indicating what could be considered a cultural shift in expectations of children’s toy play. CHILD DEVELOPMENT KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN FACTORS IN TOY DESIGN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF POPULAR CHILDREN'S PRODUCTS A Thesis Presented To the Faculty of the Department of Child Development and Family Relations East Carolina University In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Science by Alexandra Lopez July, 2012 © Alexandra Lopez, 2012 CHILD DEVELOPMENT KNOWLEDGE AND HUMAN FACTORS IN TOY DESIGN: AN EXPLORATORY STUDY OF POPULAR CHILDREN'S PRODUCTS by Alexandra Lopez APPROVED BY: DIRECTOR OF THESIS: _______________________________________________ Sandra Triebenbacher, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER: ______________________________________________ Archana Hegde, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER: ______________________________________________ Bernice Dodor, PhD COMMITTEE MEMBER: ______________________________________________ Ricky Castles, PhD CHAIR OF THE DEPARTMENT OF CHILD DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY RELATIONS __________________________________________________ Sharon M. Ballard, PhD DEAN OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL __________________________________________________ Paul J. Gemperline, PhD Dedicated to my grandfather, Jim Kennedy, who built our first mechanical pedal car in his garage and continues to regale my inner-engineer with his stories. TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................................viii LIST OF FIGURES ...........................................................................................................................ix CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ......................................................................................................1 CHAPTER 2: LITERATURE REVIEW ...........................................................................................3 Engineering and Human Factors ............................................................................................4 Patents ....................................... ................................................................................5 Patent Document Format ..............................................................................6 Overview of Child Development and Play Concepts ............................................................8 Theoretical Perspectives on Play ...............................................................................8 Age-graded Theories of Play ........................................................................10 Current Research and Literature About Play .................................................12 Design Principles Relative to Child Development ................................................................12 Challenges of Children-specific Design ...................................................................13 Challenges Specific to Children's Design ..................................................................16 Producing Children's Toys .....................................................................................................18 CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY .....................................................................................................20 Research Questions ..... ..........................................................................................................20 Data Sample ...........................................................................................................................21 Evidence Measures ................................................................................................................22 Patent Measures .....................................................................................................................25 Definition of Patent Measures ...................................................................................25 CHAPTER 4: RESULTS ...................................................................................................................27 Sample Characteristics ...........................................................................................................27 Research Question #1 .................................. .............................................................27 Research Question #2 ................................................................................................29 Historical Group......................... ...................................................................29 Modern Group ............................ ...................................................................31 Correlational Analysis ...............................................................................................31 Historical Group......................... ...................................................................32 Modern Group ............................ ...................................................................32 Descriptive Statistics of Evidence Pieces ..................................................................34 Child Development Topics ........ ...................................................................36 Location within Patent ............... ...................................................................36 Theoretical Constructs ............... ...................................................................37 Cross-tabulation .........................................................................................................37 Historical Group......................... ...................................................................37 Modern Group ............................ ...................................................................37 CHAPTER 5: DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................40 Research Question #1 ............................................................................................................40 Research Question #2 ............................................................................................................42 Evidence .....................................................................................................................43 Inter-topical Evidence Correlations ...........................................................................44 Child Anthropometry .....................................................................................44 Age Appropriateness ......................................................................................44 Cognitive Learning ........................................................................................45 Social Learning ..............................................................................................46 Emotional Learning .......................................................................................47 Physical Learning...........................................................................................47 Safety .. ..........................................................................................................48 Intended Use ..................................................................................................48 Creativity........................................................................................................48 Reinforcement ................................................................................................49 Interactivity ....................................................................................................49 Summary ......... ..........................................................................................................50 Limitations ............................................................................................................................50 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................51