This study intends to inspect children emotional expressions in the free choice activities in the educational institutions for children and the difference in the emotional expressions according to the age of children, existence or nonexistence of teac...
This study intends to inspect children emotional expressions in the free choice activities in the educational institutions for children and the difference in the emotional expressions according to the age of children, existence or nonexistence of teachers and peers. The research topics set up for those above are like followings.
1. How are children’s emotional expressions in general shown in the free choice activities?
2. How are children's emotional expressions according to age shown in the free choice activities?
3. How are children's emotional expressions according to existence or nonexistence of peers shown in the free choice activities?
4. How are children's emotional expressions according to existence or nonexistence of teachers shown in the free choice activities?
This study was done for 40 children at the age of 4 & 5, in the mixed age classes of A kindergarten located at Seoul & B kindergarten located at Gyeonggi Do. In order to examine children emotional expressions in the free choice activities, observational study was performed to observe the free choice activities indoors through time sampling method.
To inspect children emotional expressions, the research instrument of La-Li An(2005) adopted from Hubbard(2001) model was used after partial correction & complement. Emotion which children express was divided into interest, delight, sorrow & anger, and then, again into facial expressions, intonation, nonverbal behaviors, and it was recorded on the observation sheet. As for the data collected, Frequency Analysis to calculate frequency & percentage was done for the general tendency, and independent sample t-test was performed for the emotional expressions according to age. In addition, for children emotional expressions according to existence or nonexistence of teachers and peers, paired sample t-test was done.
The research results are like followings.
First, in the children emotional expressions in the free choice activities, delight was the highest, and interest, anger, sorrow in order. Especially, delight expressed through the facial expressions & intonation, interest expressed through the nonverbal behaviors or the facial expressions appeared more frequently.
Second, as for emotional expressions in the free choice activities according to the age of children, 4-year-olds expressed more interest than 5-year-olds, and 5-year-old children expressed more delight than 4-year-olds. Particularly, it shows that 5-year-old children significantly express more delight which is expressed through the facial expressions & intonation than 4-year-olds.
Third, in the free choice activities, it shows that children have more active emotional expressions when they're with peers. Especially, more significant emotional expressions shown as the nonverbal behaviors are found, and the anger & sorrow shown as the facial expressions appear more actively when they're with peers.
Fourth, in the free choice activities, as for the anger & interest expressed as the nonverbal behaviors and delight expressed as the facial expressions & intonation, it shows that children express their own emotion more actively when they're without teachers rather than with teachers.