Engagement in play has been definitively linked to the healthy development of children across physical, social, cognitive, and emotional domains. The enriched nature of high-quality outdoor play environments can afford a greater diversity of opportunities for play than indoor settings. To more effectively design outdoor play settings, we must better understand how the physical environment supports, or hinders, the different types of play which suit children’s needs and interests. However, play typologies or observation tools available to date do not adequately capture the unique characteristics of outdoor play. This paper outlines the development and testing of the Tool for Observing Play Outdoors (TOPO), a new typology of outdoor play, as well as a systematic field observational protocol which can be used to effectively depict children’s behaviors in outdoor spaces, as well as evaluate the play environment itself. The tool can be deployed in either a collapsed or expanded form to serve the needs of a wide range of studies and environments. This new tool represents a significant advance in the ability to fully and effectively study and plan outdoor play environments to provide more diverse, high-quality play settings that will support the healthy development of children across the spectrum.

中文翻译：

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户外观察工具（TOPO）：一种用于捕获儿童在室外环境中的游戏行为的新方法。

参与游戏已明确地与儿童在身体，社交，认知和情感领域的健康发展联系在一起。与室内环境相比，高质量的室外游戏环境的丰富性质可以提供更多的游戏机会。为了更有效地设计户外游戏环境，我们必须更好地了解物理环境如何支持或阻碍适合儿童需求和兴趣的不同类型的游戏。然而，迄今为止可用的游戏类型或观察工具不能充分捕捉户外游戏的独特特征。本文概述了户外观察游戏工具（TOPO）的开发和测试，该工具是一种新的户外游戏类型，以及系统的野外观察协议，可用于有效地描述儿童在室外空间中的行为，以及评估游戏环境本身。该工具可以折叠或展开形式部署，以满足广泛的研究和环境的需求。这项新工具代表了在全面有效地研究和计划户外游戏环境以提供更多样化，更高质量的游戏环境的能力方面的重大进步，这将支持整个范围内儿童的健康成长。