Pedagogical documentation: Preschool teachers’ perspective

Educational policy shapes the positions of all stakeholders and their mutual relations in the system of preschool education through its attitude towards documentation. The attitude towards the function of pedagogical documentation in preschool education programmes reflects certain views on children, learning and nature of the programmes. Although contemporary approaches to preschool education emphasise the issue of documentation, this problem is dealt with partially and technically in our country. The aim of our research was to explore preschool teachers’ perspective on documentation by investigating the current situation and teachers’ preferences related to documentation type, as well as to study the purpose, meaning and process of documentation. The research was conducted on the sample of 300 preschool teachers. The descriptive method, interviewing and scaling techniques were used. Research data suggest that the field of documentation is marked by contradictions in perceiving the meaning and function of documentation, as well as by discrepancy and lack of integration at the level of conceptions, practice and educational policy. Changing the current situation in the field of documentation is not a technical matter of elaboration of certain types and forms of documentation; it demands explication of the purpose and function of documentation in keeping with the conception of preschool education programmes and a systemic approach to changes originating from the given conception. [Projekat Ministarstva nauke Republike Srbije, br. 179060: Modeli procenjivanja i strategije unapre ivanja kvaliteta obrazovanja u Srbiji]