유아 교사의 창의적 교수행동과 문제행동 지도전략

Kindergarten Teachers’ Creative Teaching Performance and Guiding Strategies for Children’s Problem Behaviors: The Moderating Roles of Burnout

This study aims to examine the pathway of kindergarten teachers’ creative teaching behaviors toward their guiding strategies to address children’s problem behaviors moderated by their burnout level. The participants were 218 kindergarten teachers in Chungbuk, and the data were analyzed via SPSS and PROCESS 3.5. Results showed that teachers who implemented creative teaching tended to use positive strategies for preventing children’s problem behaviors and responded positively when dealing with such behaviors. However, this study observed that creative teaching behaviors had no effect on negative reactions to children’s problem behaviors. One dimension of teachers’ burnout—physical and emotional exhaustion—did not influence their positive guiding strategies; meanwhile, a significant interaction effect was found with positive prevention strategies. In addition, the higher the teachers’ level of physical and emotional exhaustion is, the higher their likelihood of using negative reactions to guide children’s problem behaviors is. Teachers’ level of skepticism and sense of incompetency, another dimension of teacher burnout, was likely to increase their degree of negative reactions and decrease their level of positive prevention. The results imply that teachers’ burnout is a risk factor, and competencies such as creativity are insufficient to prevent negative reactions when children behave in challenging ways.