The purpose of this study was to examine the role-play in the kindergarten education guidebooks according to the nationally revised educational course in 2007 in order to present basic data for the development of educational course in the future and c...
The purpose of this study was to examine the role-play in the kindergarten education guidebooks according to the nationally revised educational course in 2007 in order to present basic data for the development of educational course in the future and call people's attention to the importance of role-play which remained fall behind.
Study questions were established as follows:
1. Among life subject-based freely selective activities in the kindergarten education guidebooks, how is the role-play presented?
1-1. How much proportion does the role-play occupy in the life subject-based freely selective activities?
1-2. How is the composition of related spheres of important educational course presented for role-plays?
2. Among life subject-based freely selective activities in the kindergarten education guidebooks, how is the role-play presented by ages?
2-1. How much proportion does the role-play occupy by ages?
2-2. How is the teacher intervention strategy of age-based role-play presented?
For this, the investigator examined 73 role-plays among freely selective activities presented in 11 education guidebooks of revised kindergarten educational course, except 2 guidebooks which dealing with a general theory and a full-day class.
For study question 1, the investigator calculated total number of freely selective activities and then compared it with the number of role-play. And the composition of role-play according to the related spheres of main educational course was analyzed based on health life, social life, language life and research life.
For study question 2, freely selective activities were classified by ages. And by referring to Levy, Wolfgang & Koorland (1992) and Roskos & Newman (1993), presented in the study by Park Chan-ok & Jeong Nam-mi (1996), the investigator re-composed a criterion of analysis and then analyzed a teacher intervention strategy.
In order to increase the reliability of this study, the investigator worked with another analyzer of contents. And categorical frequency and percent were calculated.
Study findings are as follows:
First, freely selective activities presented in kindergarten education guidebooks were 668. Among them, role-plays were 73 and its proportion was 10.9%. This proportion seems to be proper, but the gap between the most frequently presented life subjects of spring, summer, autumn and winter and the minimally presented life subjects of environment and living was big (7.2%). Among the related spheres of main educational course of role-play, social life was presented for children of 3 years old; expressive life for children of 4 years old; and social life for children of 5 years old. The related spheres of main educational course of role-play for the children of 3, 4, and 5 years old were not evenly distributed to the five life spheres, but biased to social life and expressive life.
Second, as for the age-oriented tendency of role-play among the freely selective activities presented of kindergarten education guidebooks, among total 73 role-plays, the activities for children of 3 years old were 23 (31.5%); the activities for children of 4 years old were 18 (24.6%); and the activities for children of 5 year old were 32 (43.8%). Because the proportion of age-oriented role-plays was significantly lower for children of 4 years old than those for children of 3 and 5 years old, the age-based distribution must be reconsidered. As for the teacher intervention strategy of role-play, the change of main subjects of play was very rare in all the age groups. However, the sharing of background information was frequent in all the age groups. The provision of role-play time was not introduced in all the age groups. The provision of space was 26% for children of 3 years old; 66.6% for children of 4 years old; and 53.1% for children of 5 years old. As for the provision of trifling articles, realistic articles were presented for children of 3 years old, but for children of 4 and 5 years old, the proportion of unrealistic articles was higher. The planning and assessment of play for the activation of the play were presented properly for all the age groups, but the main activity of play for the promotion of the play was small (60%).