Abstract
A learning environment that offers the opportunity for the child to explore the world, express him/herself and use everyday life as a learning experience forms the basis for a child’s self-directed learning. This research’s objective is to discover the determining factors of the child's self-directed learning, revealing the challenges faced by the teachers in organizing self-directed learning process. This is a phenomenological research study, designed as a mixed sequential qualitative and quantitative study, which implies a qualitative processing of the initial data. 150 teachers from different regions and cities of Latvia completed the survey. The interviews were conducted with seven participants. In this study, 50 self-assessments of pre-school teachers were analysed focusing on the quality of their professional activity. We discovered a shift in teachers' understanding of their professional pedagogical activity, its content and implementation methods related to metacognitive abilities, in order to effectively plan, organize and evaluate their pedagogical strategies. Keywords: pre-school; child's self-directed learning; teaching.
Highlights
Pre-school education is the first educational stage in the Latvian education system, during which the child's personality is formed in many ways
Analysing the data collected from the survey, interviews and teachers' self-assessments, the opinions of pre-school teachers, principals and methodologists were studied with regards to children’s selfdirected learning, its importance and impact on the child's ability to successfully integrate in the learning process
The analysis of the research data revealed that teachers know and understand the essence of the child's self-directed learning, but in practice, it is implemented only partially
Summary
Pre-school education is the first educational stage in the Latvian education system, during which the child's personality is formed in many ways. The learning outcomes, and the child's personal life and society as a whole reveal a significant contradiction of the contemporary learning process, related to the incongruence between the child 's individual goals and the goals defined in the regulatory enactments. This problem is highlighted by the researchers of the Institute for productive learning in Europe (Böhm et al, 2011). Promoting the development of child’s self-directed learning, the emphasis must be placed on the role of parents both in the context of pre-school education and society, because the parents or guardians have a significant impact on children's learning achievements and education in general (Liu, Sulaiman & Henning 2020)
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