An Investigation of Beliefs of Early Childhood Teachers who do not Utilize Circle Time in Their Classes

Date

2023-06-16

Author

Mumcuoğlu, Ayşenur
Demircan, Hasibe Özlen

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Problem Durumu Circle time is a widely known routine especially utilized in early learning environments at the beginning of the day (Chien et al., 2010). Within circle time, it is aimed to make each member feel that everyone is equal, respected, seen and listened without prejudices and belonged to a group. (Collins, 2007). Additionally, circle time is utilized both for understanding the oneself and the others around their life which also strengthens the social bonds, increase valuing diversity, improve problem solving skills with the help of real life situations (Kriete et al., 2017; Mosley 2005). That’s why its crucial to understand the scope of circle time which is supposed to be utilized regarding early childhood education program (MoNE, 2013). Even though the a vast majority of the components of education are reviewed for questioning the quality of the content and structure, one element of early childhood education programs are ignored that is circle time (Bustamante et al., 2018). Quality in early childhood education is multifaceted in terms of structural and process indicators. Structural quality consists size of the group, form of the organization, staff-child ratio, qualification of teacher, classroom facilities and process quality includes the process of dynamic interactions among children and their teachers, involvement of children in learning process (Burchinal et al., 2002; Phillipsen et al., 1997). Early Child Care Research Network also highlights the importance of promoting structural and process quality in early learning environments for children’s social and cognitive development (ECCRN, 2002) Moreover, child-staff ratio (Munton et al. 2002), presence of assistant teacher in class (Curby et. al, 2012), in- service professional development (Slot et al. 2015) are found to be very essential for early years development in studies as, well. As a daily routine conducted in most of the early childhood classrooms, teachers who do not conduct circle time in their classes should be consulted to evaluate the quality in some aspects. One of those aspects is about the challenges teachers have. Mosley (2005) states that there might be challenging factors negatively effecting to utilize circle time and it is crucial to understand what teachers are exposed in the class as the factors hindering them to do circle time. On the other hand, need for trainings and resources of the teachers should be evaluated in many aspects because professional development of teachers is essential for increasing the quality in early childhood education (OECD, 2005). Furthermore, having unclear information about the content and the structure of circle time causes teachers to be puzzled about how to do it (Glazzard, 2016). So, teachers’ need for trainings and resources should be clarified because that is might be the reason why they do not utilize circle time. Lastly, exploring beliefs of teachers about benefits of circle time is the last aspect to be reviewed in this research. The reason is that Richardson (1996) mentions beliefs are the major factors effecting the practices of teachers. That’s why exploring the beliefs of teachers in terms of benefits of circle time may enlighten whether the reason why they do not utilize circle time may be linked to beliefs of them. Within this scope, following research questions will be investigated: 1. What are the self reports of early childhood teachers about the reasons why they do not utilize circle time in their classes? 2. What are the self reports of early childhood teachers who do not utilize circle time about their need for trainings and resources? 3. What are beliefs of early childhood teachers who do not utilize circle time in their class about the benefits of circle time? Yöntem This research is a part of a comprehensive study which is “Early Childhood Teachers' Beliefs and Self-reported Practices about Circle Time” (Mumcuoğlu, 2022). In this study, the in-service early childhood teachers working in Ankara were reached (n=502) and the ones who regularly utilize circle time were investigated by eliminating the teachers who do not conduct circle time. In current paper, the answers of teachers (n=54) who do not utilize circle time, which were eliminated previously because of the design of the research, will be shared. Current research is designed as a quantitative research including a survey attempting to investigate information collected from participants via their responses to a group of questions for exploring and describing human behavior (Ponto, 2015). For the sample selection, only the teachers who express that they ‘never’ utilize circle time in their class in Early Childhood Teacher’s Beliefs and Self-Reported Practices about Circle Time Survey participated in this study (n=54). So, during the sample selection, purposive sampling method is used in order to reach the participants who have the needed information (Fraenkel et al., 2012) The survey which has 5 point Likert type questions is developed by the researchers. In order to ensure validity and reliability of the survey questions, three academicians and four early childhood teachers were consulted for expert opinion. At the last version of the survey for teacher who do not utilize circle time there are three types of questions aiming to reach information about (a) the reasons why teachers do not utilize circle time, (b) their need for trainings and resources and (c) their beliefs about benefits of circle time for children. Furthermore, the results of the survey is analyzed by descriptive statistics. Lastly, before beginning to collect data from the participants, necessary approvals are taken by METU Human Subjects Ethics Committee and Ministry of National Education. Beklenen/Geçici Sonuçlar In terms of the reasons why participant teachers do not utilize circle time, %41 of the participants agreed that physical conditions of class (M=3,53), %41 of them agreed business of the program (M=3,67), %33 of them agreed high number of children (M=3,45), %26 of them agreed age group (M=3,25), %40 of them agreed children with behavioral problems (M=3,72), %31 of them agreed children with special needs (M=3,45), %39 of them agreed unstable meeting time of children (M=3,67), %50 of them agreed lack of assistant teacher (M=3,79) hinders them to do circle time in their class. Moreover, %60 of the teachers agreed that they need resources about circle time (M=3,92) and %61 of them agreed they need trainings about how to do circle time (M=3,9). As for the beliefs of teachers, %53 of the teachers agreed circle time is beneficial for social emotional development (M=3,92), %52 of them for cognitive development (M=3,92), %57 of them for language development (M= 4,01), while %57 of them agreed on benefits for strengthening peer relations (M=4=03), and %57 of them agreed on benefits of circle time for teacher-child relations (M=4,01).

Subject Keywords

Circle time, Early childhood education, Early childhood teachers, Children

URI

https://hdl.handle.net/11511/106296

Collections

Department of Elementary and Early Childhood Education, Conference / Seminar