This study aimed at examining general trends of day-care center teachers in their teacher-infant interactions, job stress, and job-satisfaction, and analyzing the relative effects that the teachers' general background variables have on the teacher-inf...
This study aimed at examining general trends of day-care center teachers in their teacher-infant interactions, job stress, and job-satisfaction, and analyzing the relative effects that the teachers' general background variables have on the teacher-infant interactions.
For these purposes, 136 teachers working at 25 day-care centers in Gwangju Metropolitan City were selected as the research subjects. In order to understand the general tendencies of the subject teachers, density analysis data and percentages were calculated; Cronbach's α was calculated in order to verify the reliability of the measurement tools. Averages and standard deviations were calculated for examining the general tendencies in teacher-infant interactions, job stress, and job-satisfaction. Furthermore, in order to figure out the relative influence of job stress, job-satisfaction, and personal background of each teacher on the teacher-infant interactions, Pearson's product moment correlation coefficient was calculated, followed by hierarchical regression analysis.
The results of this study can be summarized as follows.
First, as a result of examining general tendencies in teacher-infant interactions, job stress, and job-satisfaction, the subjects were shown to perceive their teacher-infant interactions to be occurring well. As for the subfactors, there was a trend in which the teachers highly regarded ‘encouragement of interaction among infants’, ‘positive interaction with the infants’, ‘care for physiological activities’ in the respective order. Job stress was shown to have an overall average that was slightly lower than the median score; the stress levels by factors were exhibited in the following order: economic stability, relationships with the parents, activities with children, work-related factors, authoritative management, and relationships with fellow teachers. Job-satisfaction resulted in an overall average being higher than the median score; in terms of the contributing factors, higher degree of satisfaction was shown in the order of relationships with fellow teachers, nature of the work, work environment, relationship with the head of the day-care facility, relationships with the parents, and salary and social acceptance.
Second, as a result of studying the relative influence of the teachers' general backgrounds, job stress, and job-satisfaction on the teacher-infant interactions, it was shown that the variable that best explained the 'overall teacher-infant interactions' was job-satisfaction. The relative influence of individual variable on the 'overall teacher-infant interactions' was shown to be effective in the order of satisfaction in the nature of the work, satisfaction with fellow teachers, stress resulting from relationships with parents, and the teacher's level of education.
The variable that best explains 'care for physiological activities' - one of the subfactors of teacher-infant interactions - was shown to be the job- satisfaction variable. The strength of influence of individual variable on 'care for physiological activities' was shown to be effective in the order of satisfaction with fellow teachers, stress arising from children's activities, stress due to relationships with the parents, and the teacher's level of education. The variable that best explains 'positive interaction with the infants' - one of the subfactors of teacher-infant interactions - was shown to be the job-satisfaction variable. In addition, the strength of influence of individual variable on 'positive interaction with the infants' was shown to be effective in the order of satisfaction in the nature of the work, satisfaction in work environment, stress due to relationships with the parents, and the teacher's level of education. The variable that best explains 'encouragement of interaction among infants' - another subfactor of teacher-infant interaction - was shown to be the job-satisfaction variable. Furthermore, the strength of influence of individual variable on the 'encouragement of interaction among infants' was shown to be effective in the order of the nature of the work, work environment, satisfaction in relationships with the parents, and teacher's age.
This study holds its importance in that it specifically investigates the variables related to day-care teachers that influence the teacher-infant interactions, so that the quality of day care can be enhanced and fundamental information contributing to infant development is provided.