Open AccessA Croatian Study of Practitioners’ and Kindergarten Teacher Students’ Opinions of their Role in Children’s Lives
Author(s) -
Renata Miljević-Riđički,
Tea Pahić,
Marija Šarić
Publication year - 2013
Publication title -
ceps journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.372
H-Index - 13
eISSN - 2232-2647
pISSN - 1855-9719
DOI - 10.26529/cepsj.239
Subject(s) - psychology , perception , croatian , set (abstract data type) , mathematics education , pedagogy , linguistics , philosophy , neuroscience , computer science , programming language
In the project Methods and Models in the Education of Preschool Children in Kindergartens conducted at the Faculty of Teacher Education in Zagreb, we were interested in practitioners’ and kindergarten teacher students’ opinions, motivation, satisfaction, expectations and attitudes with regard to their work. Two open-ended questions regarding the role of the kindergarten teacher in children’s lives, were set as a separate mini-questionnaire. For the purposes of this particular study, practitioners (N=69) and first-year university kindergarten teacher students (N=65) had to complete two sentences: “Children are like…because …” and “Kindergarten teachers are like… because…”. Their responses were content analysed and then compared. Analysis shows that both students and kindergarten teachers perceive children in a very positive way and evaluate their job as highly valuable. They also highly value their role in children’s lives (as another parent, teacher, helper, model, safe haven, etc.). The most significant difference between practising teachers and students is their perception of working conditions, where students show a more idealistic approach.