The purpose of this study was to examine any possible gaps among early childhood teachers in concern for the Nuri curriculum for age 5 and performance of it according to their background variables in an attempt to seek ways of encouraging them to impr...
The purpose of this study was to examine any possible gaps among early childhood teachers in concern for the Nuri curriculum for age 5 and performance of it according to their background variables in an attempt to seek ways of encouraging them to improve their performance of the curriculum with interest.
Two research questions were posed:
1. Are there any gaps among early childhood teachers in concern for the Nuri curriculum for age 5 according to their background variables?
2. Are there any gaps among early childhood teachers in performance of the Nuri curriculum for age 5 according to their background variables?
3. How is relation between concern and performance of early childhood teachers for the Nuri curriculum for age 5?
The subjects in this study were 291 teachers who were in charge of the Nuri curriculum for age 5 in kindergartens and daycare centers in the region of North Jeolla Province.
A survey was conducted, and the instrument used to check their concern for the Nuri curriculum for age 5 was the R&D Center for Teacher Education of Texas University's questionnaire, which was used in Seo Won-jung(2009)'s study and Heo Yoo-jin(2010)'s study in the name of concern questionnaire. This questionnaire was modified to check the concern of the teachers for the Nuri curriculum for age 5. The other used to assess their performance of the Nuri curriculum for age 5 was Moore, Wideman and Dilling(1984)'s questionnaire, which was used in Seo Won-jung(2009)'s study and Heo Yoo-jin(2010"s study in the name of performance questionnaire. This questionnaire was utilized without any modifications, and one exception was that the names of the revised 2007 kindergarten curriculum and kindergarten teacher guidebooks changed into teaching materials for the Nuri curriculum for age 5.
As for data analysis, statistical data on frequency and percentage were obtained to find out the concern of the teachers for the curriculum, and x2-test was utilized to look for any possible gaps according to their background variables. To assess their performance of the curriculum, another statistical data on frequency, percentage and mean for each item were acquired, and t-test, one-way ANOVA and Duncan post-hoc analysis were carried out to see if their background variables would make any differences.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, the largest group of the teachers showed a perceptual interest in the Nuri curriculum for age 5, which was a very low stage of interest, and the second biggest group showed a personal interest, followed by informative interest, collaborative interest. The fifth greatest group was concerned about that as one of possible alternatives, and the sixth biggest group was interested in the consequence of the curriculum.
Whether there were any gaps in their concern according to their background variable was analyzed, and it's found that their career, academic credential, age of class in charge and service area were the variables that had nothing to do with their concern for the curriculum.
The teachers who were older had a lower interest in that, and those who were better certified showed a greater interest.
Second, in terms of their performance of the Nuri curriculum for age 5, the statistical data of frequency, percentage and mean for each item showed that they performed it in a skillful way. Among the different sections of the curriculum, they were most excellent in the performance of teaching methods, and worst in application of educational evaluation
Whether there were any gaps in performance of the curriculum according to their background variables was analyzed, and it's found that the teachers who were older, who were better educated, whose career was larger and who were better certified performed the curriculum better. Therefore age, academic credential, career and certificate were identified as the variables to affect their performance of the curriculum. Their service area and age of class in charge had no impact on their performance of the curriculum.
Third, there was close relation between concern and performance, because there was difference of performance level according to concern step of early childhood teachers.