The purpose of this study was to examine the safety knowledge of preschool teachers and their needs for safety training in a bid to help improve their safety knowledge that was mandatory for successful job performance in early childhood education inst...
The purpose of this study was to examine the safety knowledge of preschool teachers and their needs for safety training in a bid to help improve their safety knowledge that was mandatory for successful job performance in early childhood education institutes.
The research questions were posed as below:
1. What is the safety knowledge of preschool teachers?
1-1. To what extent do they know about safety management?
1-2. Do their background variables, including age, educational level, career, workplace type, child age, certificate and safety-training experience, make any differences to their safety knowledge?
2. What are their experience in safety training, their perception of that and their needs for that?
2-1. How much have they undergone safety training?
2-2. How do they view it?
2-3. What are their needs for it?
The subjects in this study were 315 teachers who worked at early childhood education institutes in Seoul. The instruments used in this study were 92-item questionnaires, into which Yun Seon-hwa(2000)'s Teacher Safety Knowledge Inventory and Gang Gi-suk(2000)'s Teacher Safety Education Program Inventory were converted by this researcher to find out the safety knowledge of the teachers and their needs for safety training. After the content validity of the questionnaires was tested by an expert in early childhood education, a survey was conducted, and the collected data were analyzed with SPSS 11.0 program. Statistical data on frequency, percentage, mean and standard deviation were obtained, and t-test and F-test were employed to see if their background variables made any differences to their safety knowledge and needs for safety training.
The major findings of the study were as follows:
First, as for safety knowledge, the preschool teachers investigated got a mean of 24.8 out of possible 35 points(average correct answer rate: 70.9%). Their scores ranged from a high of 32 to a low of 10. They gave the most correct answer to the question about what to do first in the event of the outbreak of fire, as 310 out of 315 teachers(98.4%) were correct. And they gave the least correct answer to the question about the location of LP gas alarm, since 70 teachers(22.2%) were correct.
Second, regarding connections between their background variables and safety knowledge, their safety knowledge was different according to their age and safety-education experience. Those who were older and ever received safety education scored significantly better, but their educational background, workplace type and career made no significant differences to that.
Third, concerning their training experience, 49.5 percent ever received safety education, and out of them, just 15.7 percent attended lectures at school about that. Most of them acquired relevant knowledge by taking training courses.
Fourth, as to their way of looking at safety training, the teachers (52.4%) found it necessary to receive safety education on a regular basis to know better about that, and they(73.4%) considered training experience to be of use. They(98.7%) called for safety training to be well prepared for possible safety accidents among young children, and the object of safety training was thought to take an immediate measure and give first-aid treatment in case of emergency(45.7%) and to take a precaution by grasping possible cause of safety accident(33.7%).
Fifth, in regard to their needs for safety education, they wanted to take five or less lessons conducted by professional institutes about each theme during each semester, and they were in favor of practical assessment. As for what they wanted to learn about, ways of preventing and coping with kidnapping, child's getting lost and sexual violence was most preferred, followed by how to give first-aid treatment. Their needs for what to learn varied significantly according to their age, career, educational level, child age, workplace and safety education experience. The older and longer-career teachers were more concerned about what directly concerned the occurrence of accidents, and those who were better educated and had more experience in safety education paid attention to overall things concerned. The teachers who were in charge of children of three and five year old classes and of multiage classes wanted to learn about the behavioral characteristics of young children and how to work on yearly safety education planning and relevant documentation more than those who were in charge of four- year-old classes, and the former called for parent safety education more than the latter. Those who worked at kindergartens hoped to learn about ways of mapping out yearly safety education programs, preparing relevant documentation and dealing with accidents more than the teachers who worked at daycare centers. And the former hoped to be educated about accidents triggered by animals, plants or insects more than the latter.