영아의 어린이집 적응에 영향을 미치는 변인 탐색

Exploring Infant-Mother and Infant-Teacher Relationships as the Precedents of Infants’ Adjustments to Childcare centers

The purpose of the study was to explore infant-mother, infant-teacher relationships as the precedents of infants’ adjustment to childcare centers. One hundred forty three triads of twelve - thirty six month-old infants and their mothers and teachers from childcare centers in Daejeon Metropolitan City were recruited. The infant-mother and infant-teacher relationships were measured using Student - Teacher Relationship Scale(STRS) developed by Pianta(2001) and adapted for Korean infants by Chung Mi-Jo(2008). Infants’ adjustment to childcare centers were measured using The Preschool Adjustment Questionnaire (PAQ) developed by Jewsuwan, Luster, & Kostelink(1993) and adapted by Oh(2001). The results were as following: The factors that influenced the adjustment of infants in childcare centers were gender and age of infants, intimacy in the infant-mother relationship and infant-teacher relationship. In conclusion, the gender and age of infants and infant-mother and infant-teacher relationship had an effect on the adjustment of infants in day care center. The most influential variable was infant-teacher relationship, especially intimacy and conflicts. Therefore, better adjustment of infants in childcare centers requires close relationship between infants and teachers with little conflicts. When teachers strive toward such relationship, the gender and age of infants, and whether or not they have siblings should be considered for their educational approach.