The Effect of Early Childhood Teachers’ Educational Beliefs, Reflective Thinking, and Teacher-Young Children Interaction on the Democratic Classroom Management

Abstract

Objectives The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of early childhood teachers' educational beliefs, reflective thinking, and teacher-young children interaction on the democratic classroom management. Methods For data collection, 310 early childhood teachers in Gyeonsangnamdo were surveyed by questionnaires about teachers’ educational beliefs, reflective thinking, teacher-young children interaction, and democratic classroom management from 1 Feb. 2023 to 28 Feb. For data analysis, descriptive statistics, ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation, and hierarchical multiple regression analysis were used by SPSS 27.0. statistical program. Results First, early childhood teachers' educational beliefs, reflective thinking, teacher-young children interaction, and democratic classroom management were high level. Second, there were found some significant positive correlations among early childhood teachers’ educational beliefs, reflective thinking, teacher-young children interaction, and democratic classroom management. Third, early childhood teachers’ educational beliefs, reflective thinking, and teacher-young children interaction were found to influence on the democratic classroom management. Conclusions In order to promote early childhood teachers' democratic classroom management, it is important to increase the level of teaching beliefs, reflective thinking, and teacher-young children interaction is required to support this.