The Mediating Effect of Teacher’s Play Support Competency on the Relationship between Teachers' Play Beliefs and Children's Playfulness

The purpose of this study was to examine the mediating effect of early childhood teacher’s play support competency on the relationship between teachers' play beliefs and children's playfulness. To this end, a questionnaire was administered to 246 classroom teachers of 3-5 year olds in daycare centers and kindergartens in B, U, and K cities. To analyze the final 246 collected data, descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, pearson correlation coefficient analysis, and mediation effect analysis were conducted using SPSS 25.0. The results of the analysis are as follows. First, there were differences in their play support competency depending on the type of organization they work for and their final education level. Teachers' play support competency was significantly higher in workplace daycare centers than in public kindergartens, and teachers who graduated from graduate school were significantly higher than teachers with less than a college degree. Second, early childhood teachers' play beliefs, play support competency, and children's playfulness were positively related. Third, teachers' play support competency were found to have a partial mediating effect on the relationship between teachers' play beliefs and children's playfulness. Based on these results, the relationship between teachers' play beliefs, play support competency and children's playfulness was discussed. And implications for preservice and in-service teacher education were presented.