The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of field experience in the early childhood teacher education curriculum of 17 universities, and to identify any problems in this area. For this purpose professors from each university were interviewe...
The purpose of this study was to examine the nature of field experience in the early childhood teacher education curriculum of 17 universities, and to identify any problems in this area. For this purpose professors from each university were interviewed in person, by mail, or on the phone by the interview sheet developed by the researchers. The following conclusions were drawn. 1. Field experience in the 17 universities is mostly composed of pre-student teaching, student teaching, and post-student teaching. 2. Three types of field experiences are usually implemented in both affiliated kindergartens and private cooperating kindergartens in most universities. 3. Teacher educators need to understand the importance of each type of field experience, and several factors in field experience such as duration, time, the standard of selecting the cooperating kindergartens and the quality of cooperating teachers, the content and procedure of the experience, and the method of evaluation and supervision of experience need to be carefully and rationally determined and organized. 4. More studies need to be done to identify the needs of prospective teachers and cooperating teachers, and student teachers should be studied also. Factors influencing the effectiveness of field experience. ln addition, tentative models for each type of field experience and supervision guidelines for them need to be further studied.