The purposes of this study were to examine the current operational state of role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours at public and private kindergartens in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province and further the teachers' perceptions of them....
The purposes of this study were to examine the current operational state of role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours at public and private kindergartens in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province and further the teachers' perceptions of them. It also aimed to provide basic data to vitalize young children's role play in the right direction by comparing public and private kindergartens in differences.
For those purposes, the following research questions were set:
1. What is the current operational state of role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours at kindergartens?
1-1. What is the environment like for role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours? What kind of difference is there according to the types of kindergartens?
1-2. What methods are used to operate role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours? What kind of difference is there according to the types of kindergartens?
2. What are the teachers' perceptions of the operation of role plays during indoor free choice activity hours at kindergartens?
2-1. What are their perceptions of the current operational state of role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours?
2-2. What are their perceptions of their roles and educational effects regarding role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours?
2-3. What are their perceptions of the difficulties and improvements regarding the operation of role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours?
The subjects include 256 teachers working for public or private kindergartens in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province. To fulfill the research purposes, the investigator used a questionnaire including questions about the general backgrounds of the teachers and their educational agencies, the current operational state of role plays, and their perceptions of them. The gathered data were analyzed in frequency, percentage, mean, standard deviation, multiple-response analysis and χ² test.
The research findings were summarized as follows:
The current operational state of role plays at kindergartens in Seoul and Gyeonggi Province was as follows: first, the space for role play was mostly the classroom from the environmental perspective. The kindergartens turned out to have the most materials about playing house. There were differences as to whether there was a space for role play and how they would select and purchase role play materials according to the types of kindergartens; the public kindergartens were more likely to provide a space for role play and bestow more choices to the teachers in selecting and purchasing role play materials than the private kindergartens. And many of the kindergartens first considered topics of daily life when trying to replace old role play materials or adding new ones.
And secondly, there were significant differences in such operational methods as how to plan role play activities and whether to have assistant teachers according to the types of kindergartens. Many of the private kindergartens said they drew up activity plans for children by combining topics and interesting activities under given situations. Meanwhile, the public kindergartens applied natural instructions without setting activity plans and showed a lower tendency to have assistant teachers than their private counterparts. And the teachers engaged in preparations such as activity plans and props for role play more than personal participation in role play.
Then the teachers' perceptions of role plays conducted during indoor free choice activity hours were examined; first, they thought that while there were plenty of hours appointed to role play during indoor free choice activity hours, there were no enough role play materials provided. Most of the teachers replied that there was a need for storage units for role play materials and activity plans. According to their responses, the ideal cycle to replace or add role play materials was once a month or once every two weeks. And the current topics of daily life were the most ideal criteria to replace or add role play materials, being followed by young children's interest. Secondly, the teachers said that planning activities associated with topics of daily life was the most important role of teachers in terms of teachers' roles and educational effects. They also placed importance on preparing a variety of props for diverse plays and taking active part in play by capturing the moment to encourage young children's play and educate them in the descending order. They also saw the most educational value of role play in development of sociality, development of communication skills, and enhancement of emotional stability. And thirdly, as for the difficulties and improvement measures involved with instruction of role play, the teachers cited lack of play materials and teachers' understanding of play as the causes for absence of diverse role plays. The biggest number of them confessed that it's difficult to engage in quality interactions with children with no help from assistant teachers. They also had difficulties with storage of play materials, expansion of play, and interactions. And they had various ideas to vitalize role play such as in-service training to learn how to observe young children's play and interact with them, expansion of play materials, and the aggressive determination and efforts to run role plays from the head masters and teachers.