THE SAUDI KINDERGARTEN TEACHERS' POINT OF VIEW OF THE INCLUSION OF VALUES THROUGH CHILDREN'S LITERATURE IN SELF-LEARNING CURRICULUM: A SURVEY STUDY

Abstract

These days, the media has an effect on our children's world, and becomes one of the sources from which children acquire their behaviors and values. As a result, some unacceptable effects and behaviors in some children have been observed. Due to the effective role that children's literature plays in educating values, the researcher aimed in this quantitative survey study to determine the perspectives of teachers who work in kindergartens affiliated with ALNahdah Educational Office in Riyadh city, on the extent to which values are included in children's literature in the self-learning curriculum in Saudi Arabia. The researcher also examined the differences between their perspectives based on their educational qualifications and years of experience. To achieve these goals, the researcher firstly suggested a list of suitable values for Saudi children. Following that, the researcher created a survey, and its validity and reliability were demonstrated using arbitrators' agreement and test-retest procedures. The collected data were analyzed using SPSS. The results showed that the order of inclusion of values in children's literature in SLC are as follows: religious, mental, social. They were strongly included based on the description of Saudi kindergarten teachers. Then there are health and national values, which were included in the study's sample. The mental values were included in the following order: Creativity, Acquiring Information, Solving Problems, and Persistence. The order of social values are as follows: Respect, Cooperation, Friendship, Self-dependence, Achievement, Commitment to law, Sympathy, Self-confidence, Patience. The order of national values are: Honesty, Justice and Equality, Planning for the future, Loyalty and Pride in the Nation, Rationalization, and Appreciation for heroes of the nation. The order of religious values is: Loving and following the Prophet Mohammed comes first, followed by a sense of Allah's greatness and obedience to Him. The order of health values is: Sports, Appreciation for manual work, Care for Nutrition, Personal hygiene and disease prevention. For the second question, it has been shown that there is a statistically significant difference between the responses of Saudi kindergarten teachers on the inclusion of mental, social, and national values, based on their qualifications and years of experience. Teachers holding postgraduate qualifications and with less than 10 years of experience favoured mental and social values, while teachers with university qualifications and with more than 10 years of experience favoured national values in terms of religious and health values, there is no statistically significant difference between their responses. In conclusion, the values are included in Self-Learning Curriculum through children's literature, in the description of Saudi kindergarten teachers. The hypothesis of the study was accepted in the fields of mental, social, and national values while it was rejected in the fields of religious and health values.