A Study Needs Perception Toward Educational Purposes of Home Economics Subject in Middle Schools

중학교 가정과 교육목표의 필요도에 대한 인식

This study was to examine home economics (HE) teachers' and the 1st-grade students' needs perception toward the purposes of HE education in middle school which has been practced since 1995 for both male and female students. This study, attempted (1) to analyze needs priority among the educational purposes of HE subject in relation to three systems of actions; (2) to compare differences between HE teachers' and students' perception concerning the degree of importance and achievement of the educational purposes of HE subject: and (3) to examine what they conceive as the problems In the current HE education. The survey was conducted with the samples of 600 1st-grade middle school students and 101 middle school HE teachers during the period of February-March 1996. The questionnaire used in this study was a modified version which had already been developed along with the 6th HE curriculum. For data analyses, SAS program was utilized to get Means and to perform both discrepancy test and t-test. The findings of this study were summarized as follows: first, with respect to each group's perception of the importance of the purposes related to three systems of action, HE teachers emphasized the importance of the purposes related to emancipatory action, while students placed more emphasis on the purposes related to technical action. Second, in terms of the degree of achievement, students had more positive perception on the degree of achievement of the purposes related to technical action than HE teachers did. Both groups marked low level of recognition on the degree of achievement of the purposes related to emancipatory action. Third, with respect to needs priority, HE teachers placed the first priority on emancipatory action, the second on technical action, and the last on communicative action: in the case of students, the first priority was on technical action, the second on communicative action, and the last on emancipatory action. In addition, the analysis of the opinions on the 6th curriculum revealed that most respondents found it necessary to secure adequate amount of classes for HE education. Also they shared the recongnition that HE curriculum should be renovated into the one which would fully appreciate the purposes of HE education from the perspective of the practical concerns of action which are distinct from the functional and technical concerns of passive learning. The findings of this study can serve as basic data for establishing the new purposes of HE education which put more emphasis on the purposes related to emancipatory action: as well as for developing an enhanced curriculum and reinforcing the identity of HE education.