본 연구에서는 이제까지 이론적으로 많은 주목을 받지 못했던 구성놀이를 재조명해 보고자 하였다. 연구자는 지금까지의 놀이 이론과 연구가 주로 상징놀이를 중심으로 전개되어 왔던 점을 지적하면서, 구성놀이의 교육적 가치를 논하였다. 아울러 구성놀이에 대한 시사점을 갖는 것으로 생각되는 이전의 연구들로부터 구성놀이 행동을 판단할 수 있는 준거를 추출하여 유아의 구성놀이를 분석하기 위한 틀을 제시하였다.

The present paper began under the following two assumptions : (1) Applying play to education is not an easy task because of the inherently conflicting characteristics of the two, and (2) the necessity to determine children`s play in terms of its quality as a way to achieve. This paper disscusses constructive play as a harmonizer of play and education, and aiming at providing a framework of analyzing constructive play, suggests criteria for determining quality of constructive play. Questioning Piaget`s notion that play is assimilation in its nature and therefore not adaptive, the researcher explores the idea of adaptive constructive play and argues the pertinence of the idea. In other words, constructive play is considered highly valuable because it can be ludic as well as adaptive. The researcher points out that play researchers, however, have not paid much attention to constructive play, and therefore neither questioned the existing definition of constructive play nor provided a systematic theory to explain it appropriately. Emphasizing the need of more studies on constructive play, the researcher expects that the four criteria identified in this paper will help us understand constructive play from a different angle as well as take a step forward to process-oriented, child-centered education.