유아의 어린이집 적응에 대한 생태학적 연구 = An Ecological Study on Children’s Adjustment to Preschools

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This study investigates the ecological factors on children’s adjustment to preschools. This will provide fundamental data on clarifying the troubles of children who are not in adjustment and helping to overcome the obstacles. This study was established in ecological perspective for the inclusive inquiry of the factors affecting on children’s adjustment to preschools.
In the first step, the variables which are expected to affect children’s adjustment to preschools were selected. They are demographic variables (genders, ages, temperament, and the age of first enterance to the preschool), microsystem domestic variables (number of children, monthly income, mothers’ employment and their attitude of bringing up children), microsystem preschool variables (number of children in a class, facilities，distance from the house), mesosystem variables (mothers’ satisfaction with the preschools), macrosystem variables (enthusiasm for the education).
For this study, 206 children of 13 preschools located in Seoul and Gyounggi-do were investigated.
Three separate questionnaires were used: one is for mothers, another for teachers, the last for the head of the preschool. The instruments used for this study were children’s temperament scale, attitude of bringing up scale, satisfaction with the preschool scale, interest on education scale, facilities of the preschool scale, children’s adjustment scale, and background variable.
The data were analyzed by frequency, percentile, mean, standard deviation, Cronbach, correlation, hierarchical regression and multiple regression, using SAS program package.
The major-findings of this study were summarized as follows:
First, analyzing the effects of the demographic, microsystem, mesosystem, and macrosystem variables with the ecological access results that more female children (than male) and children who have more soothable temperament, more brothers and sisters, and mothers with limit setting attitude in bringing up them showed better adjustment to preschools. Among these, the most explanatory variable was limit setting in bringing up children variable.
Second, sub-categorical studies on children’s adjustment to preschools are as follows. More female children (than male) and children who have strongly soothable and attention spanning temperament showed higher sociability. Children who have soothable temperament, more brothers and sisters, and mothers with limit setting attitude in bringing up them showed higher positive emotion. And positive emotion were affected by facilities variables. This result can be explained that the preschools with better facilities are mostly large ones and therefore children come to have relatively less opportunities of friendship and close relationship with others. More female children (than male) and children who have soothable temperament, more brothers and sisters, and mothers with limit setting attitude in bringing up them showed better adjustment to the peer groups. Children who have strongly sociable temperature and attend to the preschools with better facilities showed better self control. Self control featured being largely influenced by ecological system compared with other sub-factors, especially it was affected by the facilities variable. More female children (than male) and the children who have strongly soothable temperature and mothers with limit setting attitude in bringing up them showed better adjustment to daily task.