This study was conducted to identify the relationship between the infant care teachers' perception of professionalism and the quality of infant daycare programs, and find out what factors influenced those two major dependent variables: That is, this study aimed at finding out what teachers' demographic and professional characteristics, and what types of infant daycare centers had impacts on the teachers' perception of professionalism as well as on the quality of the programs. The results of the study would serve as basic data to boost the morale of professionalism for those who were working for infants and to improve the quality of such programs.
The hypotheses developed for this study were as follows:
Hypothesis 1: There would be a difference between the quality of infant daycare programs and teacher's demographic and professional variables such as age, working experiences in infant daycare programs, total years of teaching experiences in early childhood education, educational background, and the types of teacher qualifications.
Hypothesis 2: There would be a difference between teachers' perception of professionalism and teacher's demographic and professional variables Hypothesis 3: There would be differences between the types of infant daycare facilities and teachers' perception of professionalism as well as the quality of infant daycare programs.
Hypothesis 4: There would be a correlation between teachers' perception of professionalism and the quality of infant daycare programs.
A total of 250 questionnaires was initially distributed to teachers who were working at infant daycare centers, located both in Seoul and Gyunggi Province, which enrolled infants whose ages ranged from newborn up to the age of 2. Approximately 87 percent of them, or 218 questionnaires, was collected to be used as the data for this study. The tool that represented the quality of infant nurturing programs in this study was based on the Assessment Profile for Early Childhood Programs (APECP), developed by Abbott-Shim and Sibley (1987), and then translated into Korean and edited by Ghang Sook Hyun (1994) and Cho In Sook (1997). Furthermore, the study tool for teachers' perception of professionalism was based on two instruments used in previous studies: One was the tool that Lindsay & Lindsay (1987) developed in their study, which was then modified and edited by Lee Hyang (1996). The other tool was originally developed by Lee Soo Jung (1999) and Choi Hee Yang (2001). To be adapted to this study, both tools were modified and edited after a total of 8 infant care teachers and the directors of the centers reviewed the questionnaires.
Specifically, question items or terminology that were not clearly articulated or inappropriate for Korean culture were clarified.
The data collected were analyzed by the SPSS 11.0 package, after
having both coding and data cleaning processes completed. The data were analyzed to come up with frequency analyses for teachers' demographic and professional characteristics, their perception of professionalism, and the quality of infant daycare programs. Furthermore, one way ANOVA analysis and t-test were used to analyze teachers' perception of professionalism and the quality of infant daycare programs for each group. Finally, correlation analysis test was done to see if there were any correlations between teachers' perception of professionalism and the quality of infant daycare programs.
The results of the study were as follows:
First, as a result of the statistical analysis to see the relationship between the quality of the infant daycare programs and teachers' demographic and professional characteristics, there was a difference found between the quality of the programs and the teaching experiences of teachers in infant daycare programs as well as their educational background. More specifically, subcategories representing the quality of the programs that were shown to be statistically significant with such characteristics of the teachers included safety in health, interactions between teachers and infants, and educational activities and programs of infant daycare centers. The quality of infant nurturing programs appeared to be different by the types of qualifications teachers obtained: That is, infant programs that employed teachers who had the first-class early childhood teacher license appeared to be different from those with teachers having the second-class, which, especially, appeared to be statistically significant with such sub-factors of the quality of programs as educational programs of the infant daycare centers, and the interactions between teachers and infants.
Second, as far as the relationship between teachers' perception of professionalism and their characteristics was concerned, all of the teacher's characteristics, such as their age, working experiences in infant programs, total years of experiences as early childhood teachers, academic background, and the types of teacher qualifications, appeared to affect their perception of being early childhood professionals.
Third, Hypothesis 3 was tested to find out what types of facilities affect the quality of the programs and teachers' perception of being early childhood professionals. As a result, while there was a difference found between the quality of infant nurturing programs and the types of facilities, there was no statistical significance found in the relationship between the types of the facilities and the perception of professionalism among teachers.
Private facilities that received financial aids from incorporated firms or organizations appeared to have the best quality of the programs, followed by national or public facilities, and privately owned facilities without any financial assistances from outside. More specifically, such subcategories of the quality of the programs as physical environment, safety in health, and educational programs appeared to be statistically significant with the types of facilities.
Fourth, as far as the correlation between the perception of professionalism among the teachers and the quality of infant nurturing programs were concerned, there was a strong, positive correlation between those two variables found, which was statistically significant, as well.
In conclusion, hypotheses developed in this study were all tested to be true. In other words, the quality of infant daycare programs appeared to be affected by both teachers' characteristics and types of centers. Furthermore, infant care teachers were likely to have different view of professionalism as they had different age, academic background, experiences in early childhood education, and early childhood teacher's license. One of the most important findings in this study was that there was a strong, positive correlation between what teachers thought about their profession and the quality of the programs they actually worked, which implied that in order to improve the quality of infant daycare programs, infant care teachers should perceive themselves as positive, caring, and competent teachers.

본 연구는 보육현장에 있는 영아반 교사의 전문성 인식도를 파악하여 현재 운영되고 있는 영아보육 프로그램의 질에 차이가 있는지를 알아보기 위해 시설유형 및 교사의 변인에 따라 비교 분석해 보고, 영아반 교사의 전문성 인식도와 영아보육프로그램의 질은 어떤 상관관계를 나타내는지 파악하는데 그 목적이 있다. 본 연구를 통해 영아반 교사의 전문성 향상과 영아보육프로그램의 질적 개선을 위한 기초자료를 마련하고자 한다.
본 연구는 서울과 경기도 일부지역의 보육시설에 근무하고 있는 영아반(0~만2세) 교사를 대상으로 하여 총 250부의 설문지를 배부하였고, 218부를 회수(87.4%)하여 연구자료로 사용하였으며 영아보육프로그램의 질을 파악하기 위한 도구로 Abbott-Shim과 Sibley(1987)에 의해 개발된 APECP(Assessment Profile for Early Childhood Progames)을 강숙현(1994)이 번안하고, 조인숙(1997)이 수정한 도구를 사용하였고, 영아반을 맡고 있는 교사의 교직에 관한 전문성 인식을 측정하기 위한 질문지는 Lindsay & Lindsay(1987)연구에 사용된 질문지를 번역해서 수정 보완한 이향(1996)의 질문지와 이수정(1999), 최희양(2001)이 사용한 질문지를 수정·보완하여 설문내용에 대한 이해정도 및 응답 정도를 피악하기 위해 영아반 보육교사(주임교사 3인, 일반교사 5인)와 원장님께 설문지를 직접 응답 받아 이해하기 어려운 문항이나 부적절한 어휘등을 파악하고, 회수한 설문지의 응답정도를 검토하여 본 조사를 위한 설문지로 완성하여 사용하였다. 수집된 자료는 부호화과정(coding) 과 오류검토작업(data cleaning)을 시행한 후 SPSS 11.0 Package를 이용하여 통계처리 하였으며 구체적으로 사용한 통계기법은, 연구대상의 일반적 특성, 전문성 인식 및 보육프로그램의 질을 파악하기 위해 빈도분석(frequency)을 시행하였으며 전문성 인식 및 보육프로그램의 질의 집단별 분석을 위해 일원변량분석(One-Way ANOVA)및 t검증(t-test)를 사용하고, 전문성 인식과 프로그램의 질과의 상관관계를 파악하기 위해 상관관계분석(correlation analysis)을 실시하였으며 연구의 결과를 요약하면 다음과 같다.
첫째, 영아반 교사의 연령, 영아반 경력, 총교사 경력, 학력, 자격에 따른 영아보육프로그램의 질 차이를 분석한 결과 영아반 교사 경력, 학력에 따라 영아보육프로그램의 질에 차이를 보였는데 하위요인별로 살펴보면 건강안전, 교사-아동 상호작용, 교육프로그램에서 통계적으로 유의한 차이를 보였으며, 영아반 교사의 자격에 있어서도 보육교사 1급과 2급에 따른 영아보육프로그램의 질은 차이를 보였으며, 하위요인별로 살펴보면 교육프로그램, 교사-아동 상호작용에서 통계적으로 유의한 차이를 보였다.
둘째, 영아반 교사의 연령, 영아반 경력, 총교사 경력, 학력, 자격에 따른 전문성 인식도 차이를 분석한 결과 영아반 교사의 연령, 영아반 경력, 총교사 경력, 학력, 자격에 따라 통계적으로 유의한 차이가 있었다.
셋째, 보육시설 설립유형에 따른 영아보육프로그램에는 통계적으로 유의한 차이를 보였는데 법인(단체)으로부터 지원을 받는 민간 어린이집이 가장 질적 수준이 높았으며 국공립어린이집, 민간어린이집(개인)순으로 나타났다. 하위요인별로 살펴보면 물리적 환경, 건강안전, 교육프로그램은 통계적으로 유의한 차이를 보였지만 전문성 인식도에는 통계적으로 유의한 차이를 보이지 않았다.
넷째, 영아반 교사의 전문성 인식도와 영아보육프로그램의 질과의 상관관계를 분석한 결과 전체적으로 강한 유의미한 정적상관관계가 나타났다.