ASSESSING THE RELATION BETWEEN POSITIVE FORMS OF COMMUNICATION AND CHILDREN’S AUTONOMY IN PRE-SCHOOL EDUCATION

Positivism is an essential characteristic of modern pre-school education and its aim is to develop an autonomous personality. The reasons for choosing the topic are the democratization of pre-school education, freedom as a universal value and as children’s right of choice and the importance of autonomy as a characteristic of the modern person. In this context, the aim of the present study is to explore the impact of positive forms of pedagogical communication that stimulate the development of autonomy in 6-7-year-olds. The object of the study is autonomy as children’s personal quality, manifested in a game situation. The main advantage of games in comparison with any other activity is that they give children the opportunity to choose freely, to show self-initiative, self-control and self-esteem while experiencing their roles as subjects of the activity. This is an area of everyday life where the child is least dependent on the adult.
The subject of the study is the correlation between the positive forms of pedagogical communication and the manifestations of children’s autonomy. The following hypothesis is examined in the course of the study: It is assumed that there is a correlation between the forms of pedagogical communication and the degree of autonomy development in 6-7-year-olds.
The tasks of the survey are:
1. To explore and select positive forms of pedagogical communication adapted to children's age.
2. To develop a system of criteria and indicators for examining children's autonomy.
3. To determine the degree of children’s autonomy as a result of the applied positive forms of pedagogical communication.
The methodology of the study integrates the methods: pedagogical observation; pedagogical experiment, applied in the three stages – gathering foreknowledge, planning and assessment; interview with the children; interview with the teachers and mathematical and statistical methods for quantitative data processing. The study includes 30 children aged 6-7 /preparatory group at Svetla Kindergarten, Plovdiv - Bulgaria/. It was conducted during the academic year 2017/2018.
The selection the positive forms of pedagogical communication is determined by children's inclination to copy behaviour which is very characteristic for this age group. The focus is on such forms of communication which are based on the humanistic principle and are realized by expressing pedagogical love to children. Thomas Gordon, Ross Campbell and Marshall Rosenberg’s are some of the authors whose methods and approaches are used. The communication model used in this study predetermines children’s attitude towards themselves and the world around them. How children perceive the stimuli from the outside world and how they feel largely depends on the forms of pedagogical communication.
The research has developed a system of criteria and indicators for determining the degree of autonomy of 6-7-year-old children in conditions of game activity.
The results of the conducted empirical study prove a moderate correlation between the applied positive forms of pedagogical communication and the degree of autonomy development of the pre-school children during game activities.