The central problem investigated in this field study was whether the
working conditions of rural preschool teachers were different from
those encountered by urban preschool teachers. And, if so, whether
the problems encountered by rural preschool teachers were similar to
those experienced by rural primary and secondary teachers.
For the purposes of this study, small rural towns were those towns
with populations of less than eight thousand and were geographically
remote from large rural and urban centres of populations of more than
twenty thousand.
The data were collected by means of a mail questionnaire. The questions
were devised around the issues raised in the literature about rural
primary and secondary teachers. The material reviewed was converted
into question format and placed in the context of preschool education.
Eighteen teachers from rural schools and seventeen teachers from city
schools participated in the survey.
The statistical package for the Social Sciences was used to analyse
the survey data. In all, nineteen hypotheses were tested. Further
data, more directly pertinent to preschool education, were derived from
four open ended questions.
The results of the tested hypotheses revealed the following outcomes
which were similar to those reported in the research on rural primary
and secondary education:
Rural Teachers
were younger and less experienced than city teachers
lacked resources and back up staff
lacked adequate inservice opportunities
were isolated from colleagues and advisers
had some difficulty coping with the values portrayed by some
members of the aboriginal community.
Unlike rural primary and secondary teachers, the rural preschool teachers
did not appear to have the same problems of adjusting to the rural
community and did not lack parental support.
The open ended questions suggested that rural and city preschool
teachers did not differ greatly in their perceptions of school readiness,
the role of parents, and the functions of preschool. However, rural preschool
teachers did nominate isolation and lack of resources as their
greatest problem. Both groups identified the complex and time consuming
administrative tasks as a major problem.
Since this is only a pilot study, this particular piece of research
should be developed much further. This study has implications for
further research in that it has identified a large number of areas to
be explored, especially in regard to the working environments of rural
preschool teachers, their relationship with their communities and the
problems they face.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:ADTP/219465 |
| Date | January 1981 |
| Creators | Winer, Yvonne, n/a |
| Publisher | University of Canberra. Education |
| Source Sets | Australiasian Digital Theses Program |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | ), Copyright Yvonne Winer |
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