• Journal of Fisheries and Marine Sciences Education
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• v.21 no.1
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• pp.78-95
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• 2009

The purpose of this study is to define areas and standards of kindergarten teacher's competency through survey research and interview with early childhood education community - kindergarten teachers, vice principals, principals, administrators, parents, and professors in early childhood education. Raw data from 62 interviewees were grouped into 25 codes including 'professional knowledge about young children's developmental characteristics, and labeled for representative themes. Based on the result of interview analysis, two areas of 'knowledge and skill' area (15 standards) and 'attitude and grounding' area (20 standards) were classified, survey researched for appropriateness and relative importance of each standard. 704 members of early childhood education community were collected through stratified sampling. The research findings indicate that 'observation and evaluation ability for young children' and 'affection for young children' showed high appropriateness in 'knowledge and skill area' and 'attitude and grounding area', respectively. In the relative importance analysis, 'understanding of young children's development', 'understanding of curriculum for young children', and 'understanding of young children's behavioral problem and counseling' for knowledge and skill area, and 'respect for young children', 'affection for young children', responsibility', 'positive attitude' for attitude and grounding area showed high relative importance in order.