In the field of early childhood education, recently, more emphasis is put on early childhood teachers' responsibility as well as autonomy and demands for quality and competence are made on them. In particular, the revised Nuri process of 2019 stresses the need to operate the curriculum in an autonomous way and make teachers more specialized. Essential for success in the autonomous curriculum operation is core competence that early childhood teachers should have. To develop and strengthen such competence requires two conditions, environmental and personal to be met. The former is to provide teachers with a pertinent work environment. And the latter is to guarantee their being specialized and autonomous. Thus, this study had the purpose of examining structural relationships between early childhood teachers' work environment, autonomy, speciality and core competence.
For the purpose, the study set up a research model as well as the following research questions.
First, how are early childhood teachers' work environment, autonomy, specialty and core competence structurally related to each other?
Second, how is the multiple mediating effect of early childhood teachers' autonomy or specialty on structural relationships between their work environment and core competence?
In order to get answers to those questions, this study carried out a questionnaire survey of 600 teachers who were currently working for kindergartens or nurseries located in B city. Through the move, 536 sheets of the questionnaire form, except those whose responses were insincere, were finally collected and analyzed. In the analysis, work environment was measured using Won Yeong-mi's(2015) scale that had been modified and supplemented by Yi Jeom-ja(2012). Autonomy and specialty were evaluated with Jeong Hyeon-jeong's(2017) scale that had gone through modification and supplementation for early childhood teachers. And, the measurement of core competence was made using Bae Jin-oh(2014) and Oh Bong-sook's(2017) modified and supplemented scale.
When it comes to procedure, this study first of all identified the definitions of work environment, autonomy, specialty and core competence and inspected correlations between the four variables by reviewing literature. Next, the study selected scales for measurement, prepared a questionnaire form, and had the feasibility of the document tested and verified by 4 experts in early childhood education. And then, this research conducted a preliminary survey to determine the validity and reliability f the measuring scales, and a main survey whose subjects were teachers working for kindergartens or nurseries. Finally, the study carried out data analysis on the basis of a structural equation model.
The findings of this study can be summarized as follows.
First, the study investigated structural relationships between the work environment, autonomy, specialty and core competence of early childhood teachers. The examination found that work environment had a significantly positive effect on speciality. In a similar vein, work environment turned out to be affecting speciality with significance. Also, work environment was found having a significantly positive influence on core competence. Specialty showed a significantly positive effect on core competence. Furthermore, core competence was being significantly affected by specialty.
Second, the investigation of how structural relationships between early childhood teachers' work environment and core competence was effectively mediated by their autonomy or speciality was conducted here to discover that autonomy had a partially mediating effect on structural relationships between work environment and core competence. In addition, specialty was found effectively and partially mediating the foresaid relationships.