A purpose of this study is to identify an effect of mentoring experience on teacher efficacy and professional development by discovering a relationship between teacher efficacy and professional development depending on mentoring experience, and the ef...
A purpose of this study is to identify an effect of mentoring experience on teacher efficacy and professional development by discovering a relationship between teacher efficacy and professional development depending on mentoring experience, and the effect of mentoring experience on child-care teachers' efficacy and professional development. With the results of this study, this study will be mainly used for a fundamental research data to plan and generalize the systematical mentoring on educational site by identifying the status of child-care teachers' efficacy and professional development. To do that, the following questions are made.
First, what effects does it have on teacher efficacy depending on child-care teachers' mentoring experience?
Second, what effects does it have on teacher efficacy depending on child-care teachers' professional development?
Third, what relationship exists between teacher efficacy and professional development ?
To find the solutions for the above mentioned questions, a survey with the questionnaires has been conducted for 350 child-care teachers working for a child-care center and private kindergarten located in Seoul and Gyeonggi-Do from March, 21 to April, 9, 2011.
For a measuring tool to examine teacher efficacy, a tool developed by Bun Ryeo, Lee(1998) who was using it by modifying "Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument(STEBI)" developed by Enochs and Riggs(1990) into the tool to examine child-care teachers' efficacy was used. For an self-assessment tool to examine teachers' professional development, "Self-assessment Tool of Professional Development for Kindergarten Teachers" developed by Eun Jo Baek and Bu Kyeong Jo(2004) was used.
For statistically processing the collected data, a frequency analysis was conducted to identify an general background of the subjects for the study and also t-test was conducted to identify the effect of child-care teachers' mentoring experience on teacher efficacy and professional development, lastly, "Pearson’s product moment correlation coefficient" was computed to identify a correlation between teacher efficacy and professional development depending on child-care teachers'mentoring experience.
The summarized results of this study are as follows.
First, it was shown that the child-care teachers with mentoring expereince have a higher efficacy than the teachers with no mentoring experience in the sub-factors of teacher efficacy such as a general teacher efficacy and personal teacher efficacy. It implied that a frequent correlation between the mentor and mentee tends to improve the mentor's self-esteem and a belief in self-ability.
Second, in terms of the effect on child-care professional development, the teachers with mentoring experience and the teachers with no mentoring experience did not show a significant difference in sub-factors of the professional development such as knowledge, skill development, self-comprehension development and ecological development. It was revealed that no difference between the teachers with mentoring experience and the teachers with no mentoring experience existed in professional knowledge, teaching skill and problem-solving skill, cognition over selfness and teaching, positive attitude, and physical support environment, and relationship among the teachers.
Third, the teachers with mentoring experience showed a higher significant relationship with the general teacher efficacy between teacher efficacy and professional development than the teachers with no mentoring experience. it implies that a truthful and cooperative environment has an effect on the teachers' general efficacy and the teachers' professional development and It results in a high quality education by dragging a positive change through a mutual amicable relationship.