Abstract
The purpose of the study was to examine the actual conditions of caregiver-infant ratios, group-room activity areas, evaluations of infant programs and caregiver-infant interactions based on structural and process indicators which are major factors of infant care. The subjects were 20 caregivers and 91 infants from 14 infant classes of 13 day care centers in Daejeon. An actual survey was conducted on caregiver-infant ratios and group-room activity areas, and teaching-learning plans for infants and daily schedules were gathered for the evaluation of infant programs. The caregiver-infant interactions were observed every one minute for a total of 20 minutes using Lee Wan Jeong's "Evaluation Measure of Caregiver-infant Interactions"(1999). The results of this study were as follows: First, caregiver-infant ratios ranged from 2.5 to 7 infants per caregiver, resulting in the difference of the number of infants. Second, the 14 classes for one-year-old infants were arranged in three different ways; 5 classrooms with distinctive activity areas, 2 without any divided areas and 7 containing a mix of partial activity areas. Third, in teaching-learning plans for infants, there were a large number of topics related to seasonal features and experiences while the fewest were about basic life habits. Fourth, in the caregiver-infant interactions, caregivers used more positive interactions and linguistic modeling than sensitive responses to infants and social interactions.