Effects of Participatory Design on the Development of Space Concept in Young Children

The purpose of this study is to analyze the impact of participatory design workshops conducted to design forest play spaces that reflect young children's needs and demands on the development of spatial concepts in young children. As a research method for this purpose, we used the participatory design workshop (6 times) and Landscape Montage Techniques (LMT). We conducted this study at the "Songsan-mulbit Forest Experience Center for children (FECC)" located in Gwangsan-gu, Gwangju Metropolitan City, from the second week of May to third week of June 2018 for preschoolers in K-kindergarten (six and seven-year-old integrated classes; 41 preschoolers in total). We conducted the LMT evaluation on the same preschoolers before and after the workshop, and the drawings of 39 preschoolers drawn for LMT evaluation before and after the workshop were subject to the final evaluation. As a result of the study, the cognitive levels for the spatial concept after the workshop are higher than those for the spatial concept before the workshop, especially showed the result of comparing the LMT values of 6 age and 7 age, there were significant differences on pre and post workshop in p<0.01.