The purpose of this study was to examine the perception of parents about project approach conducted in early childhood education sector in a bid to assist teachers to understand them and to provide better instruction of this approach.
The research qu...
The purpose of this study was to examine the perception of parents about project approach conducted in early childhood education sector in a bid to assist teachers to understand them and to provide better instruction of this approach.
The research questions were posed as below:
1. What is the awareness of parents about project approach?
2. What is the involvement level of parents in project approach?
3. What is the satisfaction level of parents with project approach?
The subjects in this study were 233 parents whose children attended 20 different kindergartens in Suweon, Yongin and Hwaseong, Gyeonggi province, where project approach was adopted. Their children were at the age of five in Western age. To see how they perceived project approach, questionnaires used in Choi Su-gyeong(1999)'s study were remodified by this researcher to serve the purpose of the study.
The questionnaires included 53 items that respectively centered on the perception of project approach and its merits, parent involvement and satisfaction with that.
The collected data were analyzed with SPSS(Statistical Package for the Social Science) WIN 11.5 program. Statistical data on frequency and percentage were acquired to find out about the general characteristics of the parents, and frequency analysis was made to figure out their opinion about that and its educational value, their participation in it, their relationship with teachers and their satisfaction with that approach.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, concerning their view of project approach, the parents whose children took lessons of project approach were cognizant of it. Many believed that children could start to be exposed to this type of instruction at the age of 4 in Western age, but that this approach could start to be successful for children of five in Western age. As for an ideal class size, a class of 10 to 15 young children was considered most appropriate, and regarding the frequency of this approach, they found it most advisable to conduct it twice for a semester. Most of the parents thought that this approach was applied in connection with other programs, instead of using it alone.
Second, regarding parent involvement in project approach, the largest percentage of the parents felt parents took part in instruction of this approach in general. As to their participatory activities, they looked for information or did something related to that at home or even outside home. They were informed once a week through home reports about what they were asked to do in association with project approach, and few were ever invited to participate in classroom teaching as a specialist. In the event of those who had that experience, they were invited the most as an English expert, and they singed out a large class size and a shortage of teaching materials and aids as what gave them a hard time. Also, they found it difficult to sympathize with children.
Third, the parents were generally satisfied with project approach. That was thought to contribute to ensuring more systematic and creative learning, but they didn't think the project theme-based curriculum was appropriate for passive children. Searching information on a particular project theme didn't put a lot of strain on the mothers. In regard to problems with project approach, they mentioned that lessons were given just for the sake of exhibitionism, and found it hard to be involved in it. In addition, they cited a lack of professional ability and knowledge on the side of teachers as another problem. Some placed emphasis on the necessity of the right educational system, teachers' perfect understanding of project approach and a smaller class size as a way to put this approach on the right track. Besides, it was pointed out that exhibitionism should be avoided, and that the creativity of young children should be stressed, instead.
Finally, there are some suggestions about future research efforts according to the findings of the study. First of all, the way parents look at project approach should be changed to improve its efficiency. How to educate them to switch their roles and mind-set related to this approach should be studied, and their needs for this approach and teachers' needs for parent involvement should be investigated to boost their mutual collaboration. In addition, the views of teachers and parents about that should be compared, and all the efforts are expected to provide detailed information on the improvement of teacher-parent cooperation.