본 연구는 유아교육분야 질적연구 논문의 연구 동향을 분석하여 질적연구 수준 향상을 위해 필요한 기초 자료를 제공하기 위해 『유아교육연구』, 『아동학회지』, 『열린유아교육연구』, 『미래유아교육학회지』, 『유아교육학논집』, 『한국영유아보육학』에 게재된 255편의 질적연구 논문을 분석하였다. 연구결과, 질적연구 논문의 수는 1995년에는 1.2%에 불과하였으나 2006년도에는 15.2%로 급증하여 새로운 대안적 연구방법으로 인정되고 있음을 알 수 있엇다. 연구주제로는 교수방법, 교사교육, 발달 심리의 세 분야에 치중되는 경향이 있어서 보다 다양한 연구주제가 요구되었다. 연구유형은 참여연구가 주류를 이루었고, 비상호작용적 방법에 의한 자료수집이 다소 이루어지고 있어서 현장의 맥락적 상황을 담아내는데 한계가 있었다. 연구참여자는 거의 유아와 교사의 관점에 치중되어 있어서, 다양하고 폭넓은 연구 참여자를 대상으로 한 연구가 부족하였다. 타당도 검증 방법을 제시하지 않은 경우가 36.9%나 차지하고 있어 연구결과의 신뢰도를 저하시키고 있었으며, 자료수집 기간은 6개월 이하가 68.2%를 차지하는 것으로 나타났다. 이에 연구기간을 충분히 확보하고 연구참여자에 대한 다양한 자료수집과 관찰 및 면담을 실시하여 연구결과의 타당성을 높혀야 함을 제언하였다‘.
The subject of this study were 225 Early Childhood Education qualitative studies published by Korean Journal of Early Childhood Education, Journal of Child Studies, The Journal of Korea Open Association for Early Childhood Education, Journal of Future Early Childhood Education,Early Childhood Education Research & Review, and Korea Journal of Child Care and Education. This study analyzed numbers of studies, research subjects, research types, research participants, cases, examination of validity, period of data collection, and numbers of researchers. The results of this study are as follows: The percent of qualitative studies published by Early Childhood Education Research & Review was 15.6%, 13.7% by Korean Journal of Early Childhood Education, 11.5% by The Journal of Korea Open Association for Early Childhood Education, and 2.3% by Journal of Child Studies. For research subjects, teaching methods was 27.8%, teacher education was 25.5%, and psychology of development was 18.0%. By research types, participant research was 70.2%, interview research was 22.0%, and non-participant research was 7.8%. By methods of data collection, participant observation was 36.4%, interview was 34.5%, non-participant observation was 14.0%, and documentation was 15.1%. Many studies used more than two data collection methods. Among research participants, child participants were 42.7%, adult participants were 41.2%, and both child and adult participants were 10.6%. For participants case, 2-5 people were 21.6%, 6-10 people were 18.8%, 11-20 people were 14.5%. For the examination of validity, the member checking was 27.4%, the triangulation was 24.3%, and inter-observer agreement were 3.8%. 36.9% of researches did not present examination of validity. The period of data collection was less than 6 months for 68.2% of the cases, and 7-12 months for 14.9%. 10.2% of researches did not present the period of data collection. For the numbers of authors, single researcher study was 52.5%, duo researcher study was 34.1%, and trio researcher study was 9.8%. The changes by the year were that the numbers of qualitative researches increased from 1.2% in 1995 to 15.2% in 2006. Also, the researchers were more and more interested in teaching methods and preferred participant observation of data collection methods.