Abstract:

The article presents results of qualitative research study conducted in the Czech Republic and focused on child concept of reward and punishment. The research sample consisted of 20 five – seven-year-old children. The main research objective was to detect specific differences in their concepts of reward and punishment before the beginning of the school attendance (5 – 6-year-old children) and after the first year of the school attendance (6 – 7-year-old children). Reflecting the participants´age, the method of short-track animated cartoon projection with direct action line and clear features of characters. Children drawings followed immediately after the projection to express what they considered rewards and punishments in the cartoon. The drawings underwent the content analysis and results were discussed with particular author within the phenomenographic interview. Moreover, the child´s anamnesis of school, family environment and health state was found out and related to the drawing content. Children mainly understand the reward phenomenon on the material level (e.g. they are given a gift), and on verbal (praise), social (become member of a social group) and experiential (spend an experience) levels. Contrary to this, the phenomenon of punishment is felt on the social level (e.g. exclusion from a social group), verbal (admonishment) and physical (physical/corporal punishment) level. The collected data were reflected in recommendations towards increasing the effectiveness and optimizing the work of educators with 5 – 7-year-old children. Particularly, the attention was paid to the increased sensitivity of some children against stressful situations which may result from their direct confrontation with the educator authority and/or seeming possibility of physical threat. At the same time, the importance of the educators and their means of reward and punishment increased, even though of those in written and verbal forms only.

Keywords:

Reward, punishment, pre-primary school, primary school, educational means.