The teachers' attitudes toward and beliefs about the role of children's art in stimulating their learning and development

Children's art is one of the most important fields in early childhood education. However, little or no research has been done on teachers' attitudes toward and beliefs about children's art, particularly as they relate to stimulating learning and development in kindergarten in Taiwan. Thus, this research investigated early childhood teachers' beliefs about children's art and their understanding and use of the child-directed/teacher-directed approach. This study also examined Taiwan teachers' understanding of the role of children's art in their classroom life; their view of the difference between boys' and girls' artwork; their realization that culture affects children's artwork; their confidence in interpreting/assessing children's mental growth from their artwork, and their prior experience with/learning about children's art.;The researcher conducted both quantitative and qualitative data analyses in this study. The data were gathered using a three-part questionnaire, the Children's Art-Kindergarten Teachers Survey, developed by the researcher. The quantitative portion involved 54 Likert-scaled items and 10 demographic items; the qualitative part had 1 open-ended question. The survey resulted in 260 responses out of 300 questionnaires distributed to teachers in kindergartens in Kaohsiung City and County, Taiwan. The quantitative data were analyzed using a t-test, Descriptive Statistics Frequency and Percent, One-Way Analysis of Variance, the Tukey-HSD Post Hoc Test, and Multiple Regression. A content analysis was used with the qualitative data. Four significant categories emerged from the qualitative analysis: teaching methodology, children's art function, problems, and suggestions. These were entered into the qualitative data with the following independent variables: teachers' highest education degree earned, years of experience, ages, school district, and prior learning about/experience with children's art.;The main obstacles to implementing children's art in Taiwanese kindergartens are a lack of prior learning about children's art theories---184 of the 260 teachers who participated in this survey were not familiar with either the Lowenfeld or the DBAE approach or, if they had learned about children's art theories, they did not know how to implement them in the classroom. Thus, they apparently do not practice those theories in the classroom. Little or no understanding of children's art theories seems to limit many Taiwanese early childhood educators' adoption of them in kindergarten. (Abstract shortened by UMI.)...