Lunchtime supervisors' attitudes towards playful fighting, and ability to differentiate between playful and aggressive fighting: An intervention study

Study 1 provided data about lunchtime supervisors' (N=72) attitudes towards playful fighting, since this group had not figured in previous research. Participants expressed generally positive attitudes, although those individuals with the longest service tended to hold the least favourable views. It was argued that the opinions of this section of school staff should be considered when policy about playful fighting on the playground is developed. Study 2 investigated the ability of participants to discriminate between playful and aggressive fighting. They were shown a videotape of children involved in ten separate episodes of the two types of encounter, and asked to say whether the children were playing or really fighting. The nature of these episodes was assessed by asking the children involved and by ratings by an experienced researcher. Participants' responses that indicated errors in perceiving play to be aggression, and, separately, aggression to be play, were tallied. On average, errors were made on more than one in four of the episodes, and there were more errors of the latter type than of the former type. A short intervention was implemented that highlighted how it is possible to discriminate between playful and aggressive fighting. Participants were then shown another series of ten episodes and the number of errors made were again tallied. Statistical analysis showed that the intervention was followed by a significant reduction in errors of mistakenly viewing episodes of aggressive fighting as play. It is argued that these results point to the need for training of lunchtime supervisors in this aspect on non-verbal decoding skill, and that such training might take a form similar to that implemented in this study.