The purpose of this study is to measure children's language, recognition, social ·emotional development and a certain degree of popularity among peers. And it is also to inquire into a difference according to gender and age, and to examine any correl...
The purpose of this study is to measure children's language, recognition, social ·emotional development and a certain degree of popularity among peers. And it is also to inquire into a difference according to gender and age, and to examine any correlation of development and a popularity among peers. For these purposes, the following research problems were set up.
1. How are children's language, recognition, and social ·emotional development, and are there any difference depending on gender and age?
2. How is popularity among peers, and are there any difference according to gender and age?
3. How is the relationship between children's language, recognition, social ·emotional development and a popularity among peers
The subjects of this research work are 108 children (56 boys and 52 girls) who go to three different local public kindergartens located in Seoul and Kyunggido. This research was done from March 30th to April 27th, 2009, and during this period, a teacher who underwent a research-assistant training estimated children's language, recognition, social ·emotional development, and examined the popularity among peers. Research tool of "social and emotional development of children" developed by Science and Technology Education(2008) was used. As for children's development evaluation, I estimated some items that can be evaluated through the kindergarten's daily routine, and for the items that was not evaluated, I interviewed children individually, giving them a clue. The time required was about 25 - 30 minutes. As for the children's popularities among peers, Asher, Agard, and Hymel(1979)'s modification that fits the preschool children was used for Lee kyung ok, and Yu heun jin(2006)'s research, and I transformed it into a form of survey sheet. For the inspection of children's popularities among peers, after talking about his classmates with a child, I let him indicate his extent of love to three expression pictures on the survey sheet. The collected data was analyzed according to the research problem.
For the first research problem, I evaluated children's language, recognition, and social ·emotional development, and then converted it to a standard score, and I analyzed the difference according to gender and age into t-verification, one way ANOVA(analysis of variance), and postoptimality examination. For the second research problem, the popularities among peers that were divided by children's number were converted into a standard score, and I looked into it with t-verification if there are any difference according to gender and age. Lastly, for the third research problem, I carried out a correlation analysis between children's language, recognition, social ·emotional development and the popularity score among peers.
To sum up the results of this study, it is as follows. First, according to a child's gender and age, there was a difference of language, recognition, and social ·emotional development. When looking at the language, recognition, and social ·emotional development according to a gender, girl's total score of development was higher, especially in language development. It seems to be due to the physiological and cultural background difference. Therefore, it seems important for a teacher to perceive the difference with the status of child's development. As a result of looking into children's language, recognition, and social ·emotional development according to an age, there was a significant difference in the are of recognition development throughout the age of late 4 to early 5. It is presumed that a difference in recognition area, which is composed of all the same questions, are shown more clearly than other development areas that have different development index of this research tool. Among those, younger age of the moon showed a significant difference. The younger a child is, the more difference according to the age is shown. Therefore, a teacher is to perceive the difference according to the age, and the appropriate training will have to be done.
Secondly, the popularity among peers does not have that significant difference according to gender and age. The fact that there is no difference in popularity among peers according to gender and age corresponds with the research of Lee kyung ok, Yu heun jin(2005), Lee sun kyung, and Sung kyung sook(2004). However, it does not correspond with Lyu jun gim(2000)'s research. Therefore, there is a need to go deeper into the study of the popularity according to gender and age. The research of the relationship between an age and the popularity among peers is needed as well.
Thirdly, children's language, recognition, social ·emotional development and the popularity among peers have a significant correlation, especially in recognition development and social·emotional development. It is believed that the language, recognition, and social ·emotional development, which form the foundation of study when entering a school, are related to the popularity among peers. Also, as it is proved in many studies, popularity among peers is closely connected with recognition and social ·emotional development. Teacher's ability of supporting and involving in child's development depends on the accuracy of recognition and effective education(Lee suk ran, 1995). Also, education based on teacher's evaluation and recognition plays a pivotal role in child's development. Therefore, to support children's smooth relationship, a teacher needs to consider children's individual difference according to gender and age so that he can support children's development. Especially, since babyhood is the stage of personality development, it is essential for a teacher to provide an educational environment that can support a recognition and social ·emotional development so that children can build a good peer relationship, based on a sound human nature.