2016 Volume 19 Issue 1 Pages 28-39
[Problems and Purposes]
In nursery school facilities, caring for and supporting the development of children who require special attention has been extremely challenging. However, nursery schoolteacher training schools (training schools) have not performed objective evaluations of workers’ practical abilities to provide developmental support in student instruction. Thus, in this study, we applied lectures and practices based on behavior theory. By objectively evaluating self-reflective records and changes in students’ teaching skills, we examined effective ways of providing lectures and practical seminars at training schools.
[Method]
Two students attended a lecture based on behavior theory and a practical seminar based on VTR feedback. Afterward, they provided individualized training to a young child who had demonstrated inappropriate behavior in kindergarten, to improve the inappropriate behavior. Subsequently, changes in the child’s target behaviors before and after intervention, the students’ teaching skills, and self-reflective records were calculated and evaluated based on a single-case experimental design.
[Result]
The child’s targeted behavior did increase. However, changes in the frequency of inappropriate behavior were not found. Moreover, with regard to students’ teaching skills, positive responses increased in three of seven categories, and positive changes were observed in three of four categories for self-reflective records.
[Discussion]
Lectures and practical seminars based on behavior theory led to improvement of students’ teaching skills for a child with behavioral problems and promoted students’ positive self-reflection. On the other hand, students had difficulty providing support based on teaching skills acquired to deal with the antecedent stimulus of the child’s inappropriate behavior and understanding functional analysis. This suggested the necessity of developing a method of gradually evaluating student instructional content based on lectures and practical seminars.
