The effect of the executive function guideline for writing learning experience plans on the preschool teachers’ teaching skills: a case study of the kindergartens in the provinces

The purpose of the research was to investigate the impact of EF Guideline for writing learning experience plans on the preschool teachers' teaching skills. EF Guideline is the tool that was developed by the collaboration between National Institute for Child and Family Development, Mahidol University and RLG Institute and funded by Thai Health Promotion Foundation, with an aim to help kindergarten teachers realize the importance of teachers' roles of promoting children's EF skills in planning the learning experiences. The research sample consisted of 8 preschool teachers (2 teachers per school) teaching in the first semester of the 2017 academic year at 4 schools in the province, obtained by purposive simple sampling. The research instruments comprised (1) knowledge of the EF skills test (2) self-efficacy test and (3) skills of writing the learning experience plan test for pre-testing and post-testing. For the data analysis, the wilcoxon signed rank test was utilized to evaluate the differences in the pre-test and post-test mean score on knowledge of the EF skills, self-efficacy, and skills in writing the learning experience plan of the sample. The results showed that the post-test mean scores of the teachers on the knowledge of the EF skills, self-efficacy and skills in writing the learning experience plan after participating in the EF Guideline Program were significantly higher, comparing to the pretest mean scores (Z = - 2.524, - 2.205, and - 2.524, p < .05). The results indicated that The EF Guideline Program affect to teachers had increased knowledge, self-efficacy and skills in writing the learning experience plan.