TEACHERS' PERCEIVED INFLUENCE OF PLAY BASED LEARNING ACTIVITIES ON PUPILS’ CREATIVE KNOWLEDGE IN KWARA STATE

The persistent use of traditional teaching methods in many primary schools by teachers has limited pupils’ opportunities to develop creativity and participate actively in play-based learning. The situation creates need to assess the teachers’ perceived influence of play based learning activities on the creative knowledge of primary school pupils in Kwara State. The research design employed for this study was descriptive research design of survey type. The population of the study consisted of all public primary schools teacher in Kwara State. Sample size was 297 public primary school teachers which were selected from three local government for three senatorial district using Multi-stage sampling procedure. A research question and one hypothesis were raised to guide the study. Mean was used to answer the research question, while ANOVA was used to test the hypothesis. The results revealed that the extent of playbased learning activities in enhancing the creative knowledge of primary school pupils in Kwara State was high with a grand mean of .3.37, and there was significant difference in teachers’ perceived influence of play-based learning activities on the creative knowledge of primary school pupils based on teaching experience. F(4.438) = 0.00 < 0 .05. It was concluded that while play-based learning is effective in enhancing pupils’ creativity, teachers’ characteristics play an important role in its implementation and outcomes. It is therefore, recommended that education stakeholders should encourage the regular use of play-based learning activities in primary schools, training and workshops should be organised for teachers.