Okul Öncesı̇ Öğretmenlerı̇nı̇n Gelı̇şı̇me Uygun Uygulamalara Yönelik İnançları ve Uygulamaları

Abstract

Considered the foundation of best wishes in early childhood education, Developmentally Appropriate Practices (DAP) refers to an approach based on methods and principles applied to each child with an approach that is fun, active and based on children's strengths. NAEYC's (National Association for the Education of Young Children) statement includes the principles of DAP that serve as a guide for early childhood educators. For the highest benefit of children, teachers should know and use Developmentally Appropriate Practices well. From this point of view, searching for an answer to the question “is there a relationship between early childhood teachers' beliefs and practices regarding developmentally appropriate practices?” within the scope of the research was deemed important. The relational survey model was used in this study, which is a quantitative research design that aims to describe the beliefs and practices of preschool teachers towards developmental practices. In this study, it was investigated whether preschool teachers' development-appropriate practice beliefs and practices differ according to demographic variables such as age, years of experience, education level, type of institution they work for and duration of internship. As data collection tools, "Preschool Teachers Personal Information Form", "Teacher Belief Scale (TBS)” and "Instructional Activity Scale (IAS)" were used. The scales were collected online from 272 teachers working in public and private preschool education institutions affiliated to the Ministry of National Education. Besides, "Instructional Activity Scale (IAS)" has been adapted to the Turkish content taken from 508 preschool teachers within the scope of the research.It can be seen that the Cronbach's alpha values of the adapted criterion are 0.818, 0.673, 0.766 and 0.734, respectively. According to all sub-dimensions and total sub-dimensions of Teacher Belief Scale (TBS), and according to sub-dimensions of Instructional Activity Scale (IAS), variables according to age, employment status, seniority, institution type, internship period and education status of preschool was examined. The results show that developmentally appropriate practices of preschool teachers have high belief values. In-service trainings can be organized for teachers about developmentally appropriate practices.