The purpose of this research is to understand the current situation of public school health instructors' optional voluntary training and investigate the opinions of school health instructors regarding improvements on voluntary training in order to act...
The purpose of this research is to understand the current situation of public school health instructors' optional voluntary training and investigate the opinions of school health instructors regarding improvements on voluntary training in order to activate the training system.
In order to fulfill this research purpose, an exclusive paper survey was performed from July 1, 2007 to September 20, 2007, by distributing questionnaires to 339 school health instructors working at public middle and high schools belonging to the Board of Education No. 1 of Kyeonggi province.
Aside from the 13 inadequate responses, a total of 238 responses was statistically analyzed using the SPSS/WIN 12.0 program. In order to find out the general characteristics of the answerers as well as their needs regarding the current situation and possible improvements on voluntary training, frequency analysis was performed. Also, in order to investigate the differences in background factors in relationship to choosing to perform a voluntary training, cross analysis was performed.
The results of this research are as follows.
First, the major purpose of school health instructors in attending voluntary training was to improve professionality such as acquiring new knowledge and obtaining teaching skills, the time period in participating in voluntary training was mostly during vacation, and the most trained fields were shown to be humanity and counseling-related.
Second, looking into the participation rate by background information showed that those who participated most actively were teachers with 6~10 years of experience, with graduate school education, and/or in their twenties. The factors that decrease participation in voluntary training were shown to include inadequacy in applying trained content materials in real situations, as well as a weak incentive system such as promotion.
Third, in terms of satisfaction on voluntary training, teachers showed satisfaction in professionality of lecturers, quality of training facilities, training period, materials educated, and preliminary orientation. However, dissatisfaction was shown in the cost of training.
Fourth, in terms of satisfaction on remote training, there was an overall satisfaction in the areas of variety in the educational program, adequacy of lecture method, composition of lecturers, cost of training, training period, and training evaluation.
Fifth, in terms of possible improvements on volunteer training of school health instructors, the teachers wished to have college professors and people with field experiences as lecturers; they wished to have training during vacation period. In order to encourage participation in training, they suggested establishment of incentives such as strengthening of training contents and their applicability, as well as promotion.
To suggest methods to encourage volunteer training based on the above results, field applicability should first be raised by considering the opinions of school health instructors when selecting the contents and program of the optional training opportunity. Also, the training should be improved to satisfy the wants of school health instructors by giving variety to training period, program, and method. Second, there should be actual compensation for training record, such as promotions, benefits in case of transfer, class promotion, and training participation during sabbatical years. Third, training done through other paths such as private institutions or associations should be officially recognized through positive support from the administration. Also, a system for providing training costs should be established.
It is hoped that through this research, problems regarding optional training of school health instructors be checked, and that improvements be searched for in order to encourage optional volunteer training of school health instructors. Active participation in the training programs is also hoped by providing basic materials for education in training facilities that exist in various forms.