The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among the child care teachers' play belief, emotional labor and teacher-infant interaction and to explore the impact pathway of child care teachers' play belief on the teacher-infant interacti...
The purpose of this study was to examine the relationships among the child care teachers' play belief, emotional labor and teacher-infant interaction and to explore the impact pathway of child care teachers' play belief on the teacher-infant interaction through their emotional labor. To achieve the goals, 240 child care teachers working with infants in child care centers in Chungbuk Province were selected as subjects, and a self-reported survey was conducted. The data was analyzed by t-test, ANOVA, hierarchical regression, correlation and structural equation modeling using SPSS 18.0 and AMOS 18.0.
It was found that there was a positive correlation between the child care teachers' play belief and their emotional labor, and the play belief had a direct impact on the teacher-infant interaction. This study also examined the impact pathway of the type of emotional labor on the teacher-infant interaction. In other words, the child care teachers' play belief had a significant effects on the teacher-infant interaction mediated by their emotional labor. To examine this according to the type of emotional labor, their natural acting and deep acting had significant impacts, so the more their natural acting and deep acting, the higher the level of teacher-infant interaction became while the surface acting did not have any impact on teacher-infant interaction. The results of this study have significance in that this study investigated that play belief and deep acting are important variables for the teacher to improve the level of interaction with the infant, and it is expected that this study can improve the quality of the child care service.