Analysis on Difficulties of Early Childhood Teachers in Assessing Early Childhood Development

Abstract

Teachers often have difficulty in assessing early childhood development because the assessment aspects are too complex and abstract. This fact was experienced by early childhood education teachers in Boleng Subdistrict, West Manggarai Regency, NTT. Therefore, this study aims to find and describe the type of teacher's difficulties and their causative factors in assessing early childhood development. Researchers using qualitative methods with research subjects of those teachers in Boleng Subdistrict. The data collection techniques used in this study are questionnaires and document studies. Data analysis using model techniques developed by Miles and Huberman. The results of this study found out four categories of difficulty of teachers in assessing aspects of early childhood development, namely: teachers are less able to make planning assessments of early childhood development appropriately and correctly; teachers are less able to record or collect comprehensive child development data; teachers do not perform data processing and measurement of results continuously and are not based on complete data; teachers' reports of early childhood development assessment results made in the form of descriptions, making it difficult to understand the trends of children's development all the time. Meanwhile, the factors that make teachers having difficulties in assessing early childhood development are the pedagogical competences of teachers, the academic qualifications of teachers who are not in accordance with the professional guidance of early childhood education teachers, and the lack of fighting power of teachers in developing their competencies.