PLAYFULNESS AND TEACHER’S SELFEFFICACY OF EARLY CHILDHOOD TEACHERS

Abstract

This study aims to determine the relationship between playfulness and self-efficacy among early childhood teachers. Playfulness is a personality trait that underlies an individual's tendency to be intrinsically motivated, have a clear orientation toward pleasure, and participate spontaneously and without restrictions. The method used in this research is quantitative research methods with a correlational research design. The tool to measure playfulness is the Adult Playfulness Traits Scale (APTS), which consists of 19 items and Norwegian Teacher Self-Efficacy Scale (NTSES) to measure teacher’s self-efficacy, which consists of 24 items. The subjects of this study (N=52 people) were early childhood teachers. The correlation statistical test in this study uses Pearson product-moment correlation to measure the relationship between variables through the correlation coefficient. The results revealed a significant correlation coefficient between playfulness and teacher's self-efficacy r = -0.398 and p = 0.003 < 0.01, indicating negative relationship between early childhood teachers’ playfulness and teacher’s self-efficacy. In other words, the higher the playfulness, the lower the teacher's self-efficacy among teachers. Hence, the importance of playfulness for teachers to build warm relationships with students in the classroom so that students feel safe, is inseparable from teacher competence which is based on beliefs about their own abilities or self-efficacy.