• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.37 no.3
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• pp.69-82
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• 2016

Objective: This study aimed to explore early childhood educators' anxiety regarding science education via Q-methodology. Methods: As the first step, 268 Q samples were collected from resources such as books and research papers related to science education for young children. Through five stages of excluding and modifying, a set of 33 Q statements was finalized. The P sample consisted of 40 early childhood educators and was based on educational levels, years of teaching experiences and types of centers. The collected data were analyzed using QUANL statistical program. Results: The results of this study indicate that science anxiety among early childhood educators are classified into four types, explaining 45.13% of the total variance. Conclusion: We conclude that early childhood educators' science anxiety stems from "preparing educational environment and materials," "instructional methods focused on process and scientific inquiry skills," "lack of understanding regarding early childhood science education," and "simple science avoidance."

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.20 no.4
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• pp.523-537
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• 2009

This research aimed to understand the current status of early childhood education and to develop a future direction of early childhood English education. One group interview and three private interviews were conducted with 10 early education teachers to obtain in-depth understanding of the problems inherent in English education. The findings show that there is an internal conflict in the teachers regarding the value of English education in early childhood. In addition, there are external conflicts with the children the parents, the English teacher, the program director, and the government in English education. It is concluded that the early childhood educators felt an internal conflict regarding the current, inappropriate execution of early English education which is lacking a suitable educational plan including goals and practices. Furthermore, the teacher's preference for English also contributed to the internal conflict regarding the belief in early childhood English education. Secondly, the external conflicts included: English teachers with inadequate understanding of comprehensive early childhood development, parents who show excessive interest in early childhood English education without regard to childhood development, the reality that early childhood English education is mostly influenced by the attitudes of the program director without regard for the conflicts experienced by the early childhood teacher, and the politics of the government continuing to ignore the reality that early childhood English education ontinues in practice without being included in the national curriculum.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.33 no.2
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• pp.13-35
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• 2012

This study investigated the contents and methods of science education classes based on the largely constructivist approach of pre-service early childhood teachers. The subjects of this study consisted of 8 junior students from the Early Childhood department and for reference data, reflective journals, interviews, activity planning sheets, recordings of trial lessons, and lesson analysis were used. The results of this study were as follows. First, changes in key points and contents for children science education were found, and reflective journals, interviews, activity planning sheets, recording of trial lessons, and lesson analysis clearly supported these results. Second, the actual changes in the constructivist approach to children's science education had a great impact upon the individual characters of the pre-service early childhood teachers. However, with the study period being limited to only one semester, it was found that the potential of this study to lead to any practical changes was simlilarly limited.

• International Journal of Advanced Culture Technology
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• v.6 no.4
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• pp.240-246
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• 2018

The purpose of the study was to examine early childhood teachers' content knowledge of movement education. The subjects, 60 early childhood teachers, were asked to draw concept maps about early childhood movement education. Their concept maps were analyzed in terms of superordinate and subordinate concepts by contents and frequency. The results were as follows. First, 263 superordinate concepts were shown, and they were categorized into 10 representative terms (body movement/health, music, expression, movement type, movement element, games, integration/arts, social studies, tool/instrument, and math/science). Second, 2,186 subordinate concepts were shown, and running, movement, jumping, musical instrument, and expression were frequently shown. In conclusion, early childhood teachers' content knowledge of movement education were various but insufficient in aspect of its systematic organization.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.59-81
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• 2019

Objective: The purpose of this study was to analyze the influence of early childhood science education instruction through the implementation of science teaching methods and science teaching attitudes of preschool teachers. Methods: This study was conducted on 52 female students in the early childhood education department of Early Childhood Science Education at G university in Gyeongbuk province. The data collected in this study were analyzed through reliability analysis, carbon scanners verification, and homogeneity verification; ANCOVA was used to verify the effectiveness of the program. Results: First, the results showed that the post-test belief of science teaching methods of the experimental group were significantly different than that of the control group. Second, the results showed that the post-test scores of science teaching attitudes of the experimental group were significantly higher than that of the control group. Conclusion/Implications: This study suggests that there were positive influences of early childhood science education instruction through the field practice on the belief of science teaching methods and science teaching attitudes of preschool teachers.

• The Korean Journal of Community Living Science
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.519-533
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• 2011

The objective of this study was to follow up changes in knowledge related to the mathematics education field work of preliminary early childhood teachers. The subjects of this research were 28 students who were taking mathematics education courses in early childhood education departments at various universities. This research ran for 15 weeks and was conducted through field work relating to mathematics education. The study collected data from pre-service teachers' knowledge, the diagram of concept, writing journals, interviews, and materials from the internet. Through this procedure, pre-service teachers' knowledge for mathematics education could later be expanded, ordered, and integrated. In addition, pre-service teachers not only understood the importance of contents and levels of lesson plans, but also learned how to utilize educational media to make effective lessons. Furthermore, pre-service teachers realized that the mathematical concepts of students could be expanded depending on the contents and methods of pre-service teachers' lesson plans and students could then apply these concepts into daily situations.

• International Journal of Computer Science & Network Security
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• v.21 no.12spc
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• pp.696-702
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• 2021

Informatization of early childhood education in the EU occurs in the context of the use of ICT as a means of sharing experiences, practices in the education and training of preschool children, communication, both at the national level and locally - within educational institutions, as a means of document management, search, data processing and information for the management of early childhood educational institutions, and planning activities for these institutions. This article aims to identify the features of the informatization of early childhood education in EU countries. Results. The countries of the EU have different levels of workload on the staff of early childhood education institutions, which is caused by different numbers of preschoolers and workforce. The greatest load on the staff in France due to a large number of preschoolers, which, despite the reduction, remained the highest among all the countries. By comparison, Poland's significant workload is mitigated by the size of its workforce. With almost equal numbers of staff in Poland and Germany, the countries differ significantly in the number of preschoolers. The countries also have different funding mechanisms for early childhood education, which determines the potential for digitalization. In France, total spending on early childhood education has grown the least (by 11 % between 2012 and 2018), in Poland by 51 %, in the Czech Republic by 44 %, and in Germany by 49%. In France, 100 % is funded by the government, in Poland 78 % is funded by the government, in the Czech Republic and Germany 87 % and 85 % respectively is funded by the government. The results of the survey of teachers' training in the use of ICTs and the level of specialists' readiness to use them in their studies indicate a mismatch between education and the practice of using technology. At the same time, given the high level of professional training of teachers in the use of technology in education, a low level of practice of ICT use in teaching preschool children was revealed. Teachers require professional development of ICT skills.

• Journal of the Korea Convergence Society
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• v.11 no.11
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• pp.451-459
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• 2020

In this study, data were collected from currently employed early childhood teachers in order to explore the factors affecting the teacher efficacy of early childhood teachers and 202 data were analyzed. Frequency analysis, correlation analysis, and multiple regression analysis were performed on the subjects' general characteristics, empathy, resilience, and teacher efficacy. As a result of the study, factors influencing early childhood teachers' teacher efficacy were identified as educational experience, job achievement, empathy, and resilience, and the explanatory power of the variable was 57.2% (F=45.848, p<.001). In conclusion, the higher the resilience (β=.480), job achievement (β=.286), teaching experience (β=.197), and empathy (β=.141) of early childhood teachers the higher the teacher efficacy was. Therefore, the development and education of a curriculum that combines regular and non-regular education programs that can improve resilience, job achievement, and empathy from the period as pre-service teachers are required to improve teacher efficacy of early childhood teachers.

• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.15 no.6
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• pp.139-167
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• 2019

Objective: This study aims to investigate the effects of a learning cycle model-based early childhood education program using physical motion on young children's scientific inquiry ability, scientific attitude, object manipulation ability and spatial ability. Methods: The subjects of this study were 60 five-year-old children who were attending K-G City Childcare Center. The SPSS Window 21.0 program and content analysis method were used, and post-validation Tukey was conducted to examine the differences between the one-way ANOVA and the group. Results: Activities using body movement were practiced systematically based on the circle learning. Children could revise their pre-concept and concept of error by interacting with other children, teachers and the environment. Furthermore, children were attaining new knowledge while they were doing body movement activities, assessing and applying them to actual activities. Conclusion/Implications: This study is investigated a cyclic learning-based early childhood science education program using physical motion, which has significance in systematic and practical early childhood centered education for young children.

• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.30 no.6
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• pp.209-221
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• 2009

The early childhood education in Korea has made a great progress during the last thirty years. However, understanding the early childhood education is a challenging task because of the diversity of the fields. Currently 38% of 3-5 year old children are enrolled in kindergarten. And several efforts to develop and distribute the standard curricula on a national level were underwent successfully. Researches are rapidly expanding in volume and the topics are becoming diverse. Focuses of researches moved from the area of cognitive development, science and mathematics in 80s, social and emotional aspects in 90s to language, curriculum and teacher education in 2000s. One of the emerging issues is the inclusion of kindergarten to public education system and free kindergarten education for young children. The second issues is more interdisciplinary policies are in need related to the low-birth rate in nation. The third one is about teacher training policy. The fourth one is related to the health, nutrition and safety of young children. And the fifth issue is moving educational system and policies that provide better future of young children while focusing on the children in low income families and children with absolute poverty.