Kindergarten Teachers’ Beliefs and Practice of Developmentally Appropriate Teaching Methods in Public and Private Pre Schools at Gondar City

Abstract

The overall objective of the study was to assess beliefs and practice of developmentally appropriate teaching methods in public and private schools at Gondar City. In order to attain the objectives of the study, this research had adopted both quantitative and qualitative (Convergent parallel mixed method) research approach. The target population of interest for this study was preschool teachers and principals working in both government and private school at Gondar City. In total 60 preschool teachers had become a part of the study. For qualitative part of the study 8 principals (for conducting interview) and 14 teachers (for focus group discussion) were selected purposively. The major instrument for collection of data for the study was questionnaire. In order to assess the existing challenges in implementing developmentally appropriate teaching- learning methods in Preschools of Gondar City focus group discussions (FGD), interview and observation checklist were employed to gather data. Both quantitative and qualitative data analysis techniques were employed in this study. In the quantitative data analysis aspect descriptive analysis, such as means and SD and inferential statistics such as t-test and Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) were used. Qualitative data collected through interview and FGD were described using words by narrations and direct quotation. The finding of the study shows that majority of preschool teachers in private and public were not implementing child centered methods. The result shows that the mean score on level of teachers’ belief on developmentally appropriate practice is 3.8329. (SD=.3249) which is significantly higher than the expected mean, demonstrating that the selected preschool teachers have high levels of belief on developmentally appropriate practice. The results also show that the mean score of preschool teachers’ practice on developmentally appropriate practice is 2.7017 (SD= 0.493). which is lower than the expected mean value. Statistical finding also clearly depicted that belief and practice on developmentally appropriate teaching methods did not show variation as a function of teacher’s demographic characteristics. The existing challenges in implementing developmentally appropriate teaching- learning methods in Preschools of Gondar City are inadequacy of out-door playing materials, lack of playing ground and age inappropriate playing material and insecure playing ground. Lecture-method delivery was mainly practiced as normal lesson delivery.