This study aimed at seeking the way child care teachers can aggressively manage standard child care curriculum in child care centers by identifying problems through the examination of differences in child care teachers' general perception, application...
This study aimed at seeking the way child care teachers can aggressively manage standard child care curriculum in child care centers by identifying problems through the examination of differences in child care teachers' general perception, application and practice of standard child care curriculum and their demand for education and training according to their features and by presenting suggestions.
The samples for this study included 300 child care teachers selected from the population of child care teachers working in child care facilities in Daegu metropolitan city. The collected data were calculated into frequency and percentage for an analysis, and underwent χ2 test and one-way analysis of variance.
Materials referenced here included teacher guidelines and the Standard Child Care Curriculum Act the Ministry of Gender Equality released in January 2007 on the basis of standard child care curriculum. In addition, this study examined the results of application cases of standard child care curriculum in child care centers and the curriculums of kindergartens
The findings of the study were summarized as follows.
First, with regard to the question, “Do child care teachers thoroughly know and understand of teacher guidelines and detailed content of standard child care curriculum?" most of child care teachers were found to have only superficial understanding of the curriculum, and were not well aware of the utilization of evaluation criteria or results. Therefore, it was required to deliver sufficient education on standard child care curriculum to all child care teachers.
Second, child care teachers who majored in early childhood education had more perception of the goal of standard child care curriculum and human beings sought under the curriculum, compared with teachers who majored in fields similar to early childhood education. In addition, compared with teachers with less than three years of child care experience, teachers with five years child care experiences turned out to have more general perception of standard child care curriculum and better understanding of detailed sections of the curriculum. Therefore, there arose a need to deliver education or training on standard child care curriculum mainly to teachers with less experience.
Third, according to the results of the examination of child care teachers' desire for education and training about standard child care curriculum, although 72.6% of child care teachers wanted to participated in the training, they were given insufficient opportunities to get education or training and failed to meet the requirements for getting training courses. In addition, 97.5% of those surveyed were found to feel the necessity of education or training on standard child care curriculum. As for education method preferred by child care teachers, cyber lecture took first place, followed by night classes on week days and day classes during weekends. As for preferred places to conduct the training, child care information centers and child care centers ranked first, followed by education training facilities and universities. Furthermore, the most preferred organization to supervise the training was child care information centers, followed by the association of child care facilities, With regard to training methods, lectures were the most preferred method, followed by excursions and case presentations. As for duration of education, eight hours daily was considered appropriate. What child care teachers wanted to learn most from the training was the detailed content of each section of standard child care curriculum.
Fourth, as for problems with the management of standard child care curriculum, a lack of teaching and learning materials took first place, followed by a lack of education and training programs, lack of perception and support to facilities, lack of teachers' efforts and willingness to do research, a shortage of time attributed to overloaded tasks, a shortage of teachers' professional knowledge and experience, and shortage of teaching materials and instruments for child care activities. Therefore, the system that can resolve the problems above needs to be developed, and the perception of the standard child care curriculums of child care facilities should be raised.
In conclusion, in order to effectively apply and practice standard child care curriculum, the education and training programs of the curriculum should be planned in detail and promoted. That is, in order to help child care teachers to easily learn standard child care curriculum, their requirements should be fulfilled, and they should be granted with various training opportunities.