• Korean Journal of Child Studies
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• v.31 no.3
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• pp.215-233
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• 2010

The purpose of this study was to investigate the differences between the kindergarten teachers and teachers working at child care centers in terms of their professionalism, teaching efficacy and their perceptions regarding the integration of kindergarten and child care centers. Furthermore, this study examined whether those differences which were revealed were found between the subjects by their college major degree and place of employment. The 598 teachers who served as subjects for this study completed self-administered questionnaires. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics, chi-square tests and t-tests. The main results were as follows. The significant differences were found between the subgroups by college major degree in teaching efficacy and perceptions regarding the integration system. In addition, the subjects from child care centers had higher levels of teaching efficacy than their counterparts in other work environments, even though they had majored in the same subjects of early childhood education.