摘要：The purpose of this study was to examine the awareness of two major groups of early childhood teachers,(that is,kindergarten teachers and nursery teachers),in terms of the image of what constitutes an early childhood teacher. More specifically,this study sought to investigate any possible gaps between the two groups in that aspect,in an effort to shed light on (and understand in greater detail),the awareness of the two groups regarding the image of early childhood teachers in detail. The subjects in this study comprised 310 early childhood teachers,out of which 156 teachers worked in kindergartens and 154 teachers worked in daycare centers in Busan,Ulsan and South Gyeongsang Province. The findings of the study were as follows：First,kindergarten teachers` images of a kindergarten teacher were mostly associated with the professional domain,followed by the domain of personality,a physical domain and a professional attitude domain. As a result of checking the awareness of the nursery teachers regarding the image of a kindergarten teacher in more detail,their image of a kindergarten teacher appeared to be mostly associated with the professional domain,followed by the professional attitude domain,the domain of personality and the physical domain. There were statistically significant gaps between the kindergarten teachers and the nursery teachers in terms of their image of a kindergarten teacher. Second,as for the awareness of the kindergarten teachers of the image of a nursery teacher,their image of a nursery teacher was mostly linked to the domain of personality,followed by the professional domain,the physical domain and the professional attitude domain. Regarding the awareness of the nursery teachers of the image of a nursery teacher,their image of a nursery teacher was mostly associated with the professional domain,followed by the domain of personality,the professional attitude domain and the physical domain. Statistically significant gaps between the kindergarten teachers and the nursery teachers were found in the image of a nursery teacher.
