A study on the perception and expectation of Parent about Kindergarten Education

유치원 교육에 관한 학부모의 인식과 기대에 관한 실태조사

The purpose of the study is to analyze the perception and expectation made by parents, regarding the goal, methods and management of kindergarten education. The study is designed to identify social needs for the early childhood education and to produce some important information necessary for the development of education programs for kindergarteners and for the management of a kindergarten. As subjects of the study, 623 mothers of kindergartens were sampled from kindergartens. The researcher constructed a questionnaire of multiple-choice type for surveying opinions of the subjects, based on the analysis of curriculum materials published by Korean Ministry of Education. In data analysis, frequency of response on each item of the questionnaire was tabulated, and chi-square test was applied for testing the difference between independent samples. The results of the study are summarized as followings: First, parents feel kindergarten education necessary because 'interaction with peers' itself must be an important condition for socialization of younger children. For an 'ideal personality' to be pursued in kindergarten education, parents place 'moral personality' in the first priority.' And for educational objective of kindergarten they select 'development of cooperative attitude' as the most important one. Second, 'play method' is emphasized by parents as the most desirable educational method for kindergartener. Third, they think it is necessary for parents to participate in the management of kindergarten. And they also feel that parents of kindergartener should be educated on the early childhood education. Fourth, parents emphasize that the early childhood education should be integrated into a public educational system in order to provide equal educational opportunity for all preschoolers.