The purpose of this study was to examine would-be young child teacher's overall perception of young child character education.
Study questions were established as follows: 1)"what is would-be young child teacher's perception for the extent of reflec...
The purpose of this study was to examine would-be young child teacher's overall perception of young child character education.
Study questions were established as follows: 1)"what is would-be young child teacher's perception for the extent of reflection of young child character education on the educational course of young child teachers?"; 2)"what is would-be young child teacher's perception and interest in young child character education?"; and 3) "what is would-be young child teacher's perception for the operation of young child character education?"
Study subject were 278 students in graduating classes of young child education at three 3-year universities and four 4-year universities in Seoul and Gyeonggi areas.
As for the questionnaire survey of would-be young child teacher's perception of young child character education, the investigator used the questionnaire developed by Ryu Mal-sun (2002) and Lim Jeong-yeol (2002) on the basis of Choe Tae-gyeong(1999)'s questionnaire, by adding questions which were related to the degree of reflection of young child character education on the educational course of young child teachers. Upon developing the study questionnaire, the investigator acquired the face validity of a university professor whose major was young child education and two field specialists.
Collected data were processed with the SPSS 14.0 statistical package program for windows. And data of which questions consisted of 5-point Likert scale were analyzed with frequency analysis and percentage. And data of which questions consisted of multiple-choice (selecting three questions) were analyzed with response frequency and percentage.
Study findings are as follows:
First, would-be young child teacher's interest in young child character education was very high. The educational agencies of young child teachers dealt with the young child character education, but the extent of dealing was not great.
Second, would-be young child teachers well understood the goal, conception and content of young child character education, but they could not accurately discriminate it from the education for the whole man and the education of morality.
Based on study findings, the investigator presents following suggestions for follow-up studies:
First, the current young child character education is only emphasized for the sake of slogans and the efforts for the concrete studies, experiments, operations and systematization of the content and method of practical character education are not activated yet. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a variety of young child character education programs.
Second, studies on the contents of a standard curriculum which can be utilized in the educational agencies of young child teachers must be carried out. The contents of this standard curriculum must be comprehensive, concrete and practical with which would-be young child teachers could understand the overall course of kindergarten education. Teachers who all-inclusively completed the course of young child character education in the educational agencies of young child teachers on the basis of the standard curriculum are expected to master the importance of young child character education and the teaching method in the actual scene of education, thus actually carrying out the young child character education intentionally.
Third, since the role of teachers is important in the young child character education, a continuous education of teachers is necessary. Before beginning a teaching career, would-be teachers must internalize good character for themselves continuously. This is seemingly a long-term task of would-be young child teachers. In this vein, it is necessary to carry out studies on the development of programs with which would-be teachers can internalize good character for themselves.