This study has been conducted to analyze the early childhood educators' perceptions on child care environment, such as teacher-child ratio, operational types of classroom, human related issues. These analysis are applied to define the human factors for pre-school education, which can be important elements to enhance teacher-young children quality of interactions.
The research questions to be grasped for the purpose of this study are as follows.
1) what is the perception of EC teachers about the current regulations on teacher-to-appropriate number of young children?
2) what is the difference in perception of the EC teacher-to-appropriate number of young children according to the individual & organizational variables of early childhood teachers?
3) what is the demand of EC teachers for improving the human environment in the classroom?
The subjects of this study were 273 teachers working at early childhood education institutions located in Busan Metropolitan City. The survey items are based on the analysis of previous research on the promotion task items of the 'Environment Creation Plan for Enhancing the Effectiveness of Early Childhood Education and Childcare' announced at the 〈Childcare Policy Research Institute〉 published in 2016. The researcher revised and supplemented the survey item by the above three research questions.
Based on the survey contents, the results identified by statistical analysis are as follows.
First, 93.8% of infant teachers are considering the current regulation standard on the number of students per teacher is very high and it needs to be adjusted. This finding justifies that the current regulation on the ratio should be improved.
Second, with the investigation of teachers' perception difference variable between individual and organizational, the ideal distribution of teacher-to-appropriate young children was found to be 2 young children aged 0, 3 young children aged 1, 5 young children aged 2, 8~10 young children aged 3, 13~15 young children aged 4 years old, and 13~15 young children aged 5. Though it does not show a significant gap between individual and organizational variables in general, the number of teachers-to-young children especially in 3-year makes a difference, which are 8-10 young children per class in private kindergartens and 15-17 young children per class in public with the result according to the operating entity.
Regardless of individual or organizational variables, one of the most expected effects would be the improvement of a quality of interaction between young children and EC teachers.
In addition, an ideal type of classes is identified as one operated by one teacher in charge with one teaching assistant for each class.
Third, the teachers' demand for improvement of human environment in the classroom was the most frequently supported by assistant teachers, followed by administrative support and supplementation of manpower for classroom cleaning.
Overall, there was no significant difference in teachers' perception of the appropriate number of young children by individual variable and organizational variable, but significant differences were found in private and public facilities, and variables between teachers less than 5 years and teachers more than 10 years.
This research found the fundamental indicators necessary for improving the human resources of young children care facilities based on the teacher's perception survey of the appropriate number of young childrens per class, class type, and human environment to improve the interaction quality between young children and teachers.