Educational environment as a factor of psychological well-being of pre-school children

Author: Yelupakhina A., Educational institution "Maxim Tank Belarusian State Pedagogical University" (Belarus)

Keywords

Psychological well-being, late preschool age, types of psychological well-being, educational environment, ensuring children's psychological well-being, pre-school institution

Abstract

The relevance of the study lies in the existing contradiction between the significance of the psychological well-being of the child for its successful socialization, Formation of the highest mental functions and insufficient development of this problem at the pre-school stage, taking into account the influence of negative trends of sociocultural transformations, as well as qualitatively other conditions of life of modern children. Purpose statement – studying the influence of the educational environment on the psychological well-being of children of late preschool age. Methods: organizational, empirical (observation, survey, psychological experiment (quasi-experiment), physcho-diagnostic method, including tests and surveys), quantitative and qualitative methods of data processing, interpretive. The sample consisted of 409 older pre-school children of pre-school institutions in Belarus. The number of participants in the formative stage was determined on the basis of the naturally established 20 groups of pre-school institutions. In the course of the study, the author’s interpretation and operationalization of the concept of «psychological well-being of the child» in relation to pre-school age were carried out. Based on the empirical classification, three types of psychological well-being of children of senior pre-school age have been singled out and characterised in a meaningful way: a well-off, conditionally well-off, and eventually disadvantaged. The relationship of indicators of child well-being and components of educational environment has been determined. A programme to optimize the educational environment in the pre-school education institution group has been developed and tested. The results presented in the study make it possible to speak with a high probability about the characteristics of social, spatial and subject and technological components as determinants of psychological well-being of the child.

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