Ajayi Hannah Olubunmi
Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria
Scientific Tracks Abstracts: J Psychol Abnorm Child
Often times, comments such as, 'He/She is too playful', 'Too quiet in class', 'He/She is non-compliant', 'Too stubborn', 'Too aggressive' 'Too rough/clumsy' and all sorts are written in children's progress reports and they were sent home by teachers. At the same time, parents sometimes come to school stating, "My child is too playful/stubborn" and alike. They then call for the child to be disciplined to correct such behavior. Considering the nature of such interactions that exists between some parents, teachers and the preschool children, this therefore raises questions as do parents or teachers really understand the psychological characteristics of children? Or why do they treat children in such a harsh manner in the guise of discipline? The period between births to five years of a child is a critical time for all round development. It is a sensitive period which if mishandled may result in deficit in personality development. It is against this backdrop that this study is conceived to examine parents and teachers' understanding of children psychological characteristics. Four hundred preschoolers' parents and two hundred and fifty preschool teachers purposively selected were used for the study. Patents-Teachers' Children Psychological Characteristics Perspectives Questionnaire (PTPCPQ) was used for the study. It has three sections, Section-A, solicited information about the demographic information of the respondents. Section B focused on parents perspectives of children's psychological characteristics which are on 4-Likert scale. Section C focused on preschoolers' teachers perspectives. Data were analyzed using appropriate statistical tools, results presented and recommendations proffered for the appropriate stakeholders.
Ajayi Hannah Olubunmi has completed her PhD and she is a Senior Lecturer in the Institute of Education, Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. She specializes in the Early Childhood Education from the premier university, University of Ibadan, Nigeria as well as International Child & Youth Care Development from University of Victoria, British Colombia, Canada. She has bias in Language Arts/Reading development in children. She has published over 24 articles in referred journals both nationally and internationally. She has attended several national and international conferences where she presented papers. She is the Managing Editor of Ife Journal of Theory and Research in Education (IJOTRE). She has also authored textbooks for early years. She has served as Resource Person for UNICEF (Nigeria) and National Education and Research Development Commission (NERDC) to develop Learning Standards and Curriculum of Early Childhood Program in Nigeria.
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