A Study On Outdoor Play Belief And Supportive Behavior Of Kindergarten Teachers

Kindergartens take games as their basic activities.The concept of opposing laissez-faire games,advocating teachers’ participation in and guidance of children’s games,so that children can gain beneficial learning experience in games has gradually become a consensus among preschool educators in China.Outdoor games,as an important part of games,have unique value for children’s development because of their novelty,change and challenge,which are not available in indoor activities.However,with the acceleration of urbanization,the increase of parents’ demands for work,and the entry of various electronic products and interest classes into children’s lives,electronic children,plastic children,small bean bags,children with nature deficit disorder have become the true portrayal of contemporary children.The kindergarten should not have less than two hours of outdoor play time every day,which has become an important field to ensure children’s outdoor play time.Teachers’ supportive behaviors in outdoor games can help children develop to a higher level of play.Existing studies have shown that teachers are often helpless when it comes to observing and interpreting children’s play behaviors in outdoor games practice,and often appear "laissez-faire" and "highly controlled" behaviors.There is a certain distance between teachers’ supporting behavior and children’s game needs,which leads to the outdoor games in kindergartens failing to play their due value.As for the ineffective support behavior of kindergarten teachers in outdoor games,the existing researches mainly focus on the status quo,problems and strategies of teachers’ support behavior,and rarely study from the perspective of the belief behind kindergarten teachers’ support behavior.A large number of studies have shown that teacher belief is an important factor affecting teacher behavior,and its influence on teacher teaching plan and teaching arrangement is even greater than that of teacher knowledge.Based on this,this study tries to understand teachers’ supporting behaviors for children in outdoor games from the perspective of the belief behind teachers’ supporting behaviors,so as to enrich relevant researches on kindergarten teachers’ professional development and help kindergartens bring new reflective positions and perspectives in the process of improving the quality of outdoor games.Six teachers from two sample gardens were selected as research objects to understand the research status,research methods and research trends by literature method.Using observation method to understand the kindergarten teachers outdoor game support behavior status;Interview method was used to understand the status quo of kindergarten teachers’ outdoor game support behavior.The use of diary method to fully explore the deep psychological activities behind the kindergarten teachers’ support behavior.NVivo12 software was used to encode,analyze and refine the research data of six interviewed teachers with the help of grounded theory,so as to form the final research theoretical model.The following findings are obtained: First,the value of games is consistent with the type of games.Kindergarten teachers believe that the main value of outdoor games is to promote children’s physical development,and action games are often used as the main type of outdoor games.The reason is that kindergarten teachers believe that the main value of outdoor games is to promote children’s physical development and the outdoor games are fixed and single.Second,the kindergarten teachers believe that children should be the main body of outdoor games,but in the practice process,they are dominated by teachers,showing a high control and laissez-faire organizational form.The reason is the conflict between security and development as well as the contradiction between traditional education and current education.Thirdly,the role of teachers is inconsistent.Kindergarten teachers believe that teachers should not only give rules management to children in outdoor games,but also provide educational and emotional support.However,in the practice process,teachers focus on rules management,showing supporting behaviors that emphasize management over education.The reason is the tense daily living arrangement of kindergarten and the lack of outdoor game knowledge and cooperation consciousness of teachers;Fourth,in terms of environment creation,kindergarten teachers believe that the creation of outdoor game environment should be from the perspective of children,but in the actual environment creation,it is mostly from the perspective of adults.The reason is the limited level of kindergarten managers and the characteristics of the material site.Based on the analysis of the above reasons,this study puts forward the following suggestions from the two aspects of kindergarten managers and teachers: First,in the aspect of kindergarten managers,to provide the space for teachers’ professional development,give teachers the autonomy to play,and create an outdoor game environment from the perspective of children;Second,in the aspect of teachers: teachers should improve the consciousness of independent development and professional reflection ability.