A Preliminary Investigation of Communication Skills Workshop Impact on Pre-Service Early Childhood Educators: Evidence from a Single-Group Study

Chito Mataac

ผู้แต่ง

Chito Mataac Faculty of Management Science, Bansomdejchaopraya Rajabhat University

คำสำคัญ:

Communication skills, Early childhood education, Pre-service teachers, Professional development

บทคัดย่อ

This preliminary investigation examined the impact of a seminar-workshop on enhancing the self-reported communication skills of future early childhood educators across three domains: interactions with children, parents, and colleagues. Using a single-group pre-test/post-test design, 40 undergraduate Early Childhood Education students participated in a structured professional development intervention incorporating experiential learning activities, role-playing exercises, and collaborative discussions. While acknowledging significant methodological limitations, including the absence of a control group and exclusive reliance on self-report measures, the results demonstrated statistically significant improvements across all domains with large effect sizes: child interactions (d = 1.89, p < 0.001), parent interactions (d = 1.96, p < 0.001), and colleague interactions (d = 2.14, p < 0.001). Post-workshop evaluations indicated high participant satisfaction and perceived professional benefit. These findings provided preliminary evidence suggesting the potential value of structured communication skills training in early childhood education programs, while highlighting the critical need for more rigorous experimental designs to establish definitive effectiveness. The research serves as an important foundation for future controlled studies examining communication skills development in pre-service educator preparation.

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