DEVELOPMENT AND ASSESSMENT OF APPROPRIATE SAFETY PLAYGROUND APPAREL FOR SCHOOL AGE CHILDREN IN RIVERS STATE

The major purpose of the study was to develop safety playground apparel for school age children in Riv ers State, Nigeria. Specifically, the study assessed the appropriateness of various sizes of safety playground apparels prototype s by judges based on functional (movement/posture, fit, comfort, safety/protection, usability); expressive and aesthetic attributes. The study was carried out in Rivers State. The design for the study was Research and Development (R&D). Purposive sampling technique was used to select 9 user models and 20 judges that participated in evaluation of prototype safety playground apparel. The findings of the study established that the judges ascertained that the appropriateness of all the sizes (small, medium and large)of the safety playground apparel are good and satisfactory for protection and safety; for movement and posture; have good fit; comfort; usability; expressive and aesthetics attributes. Based on the findings, it was recommended among others that there should be compulsory utilization of safety playground apparel in schools; use of appropriate sizes of safety apparel by pupils and inculcation as a criterion in school accreditation.