The Influence of Teacher Efficacy and Instructional Creativity
on Happiness in Kindergarten Teachers

Kim Min-young

Major in Early Childhood Education
Graduate School of Education
Pukyong University

ABSTRACT
The happiness of early childhood teachers is one of integral factors to affect not only their personal lives but the happiness of preschoolers who spend a lot of time with them, and it''s required to make an effort to improve their happiness. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of the teacher efficacy and instructional creativity of kindergarten teachers on their happiness in an effort to draw attention to the happiness of kindergarten teachers, to have a better understanding of them and ultimately to make a contribution to the development of supportive and educational programs geared toward making them happy teachers.
Two research questions were posed:
1. What are the relationships of teacher efficacy and instructional creativity to happiness in kindergarten teachers?
2. What relative influence do their teacher efficacy and instructional creativity exercise on happiness?
The subjects in this study were 355 selected teachers who worked in kindergartens located in the city of Busan. The instrument used to measure the happiness of the kindergarten teachers was Kim Si-yeon (2014)''s inventory that modified Choi Yo-won(2002)''s adapted version of Hills and Argyle(2002)''s Oxford Happiness Questionnaire, or OHQ. The instrument used to assess teacher efficacy was Kim Hee-jin and Lee Boon-ryeo(1999)''s inventory that modified Ernochs and Riggs(1990)''s Science Teaching Efficacy Belief Instrument, or STEBI. The instrument used to evaluate instructional creativity was Baek Young-sook and Kim Hee-tae(2008)''s Instructional Creativity Inventory that was based on Cropley(2004)''s teacher creativity test items and was used by Lee Kyung-mi(2012). The collected data were analyzed by a statistical package SPSS 18.0, and frequency analysis, Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and stepwise multiple regression analysis were utilized.
The findings of the study were as follows:
First, the overall teacher efficacy and overall instructional creativity of the kindergarten teachers had statistically significant positive correlations with their happiness, and that also was the case for every subfactor of the variables. Second, teacher efficacy and instructional creativity had an approximately 42% explainability of happiness, and teacher efficacy was more influential than instructional creativity. As for the subfactors of the variables, personal teacher efficacy that was one of the teacher efficacy subfactors had a positive impact on happiness. In regard to the relationship between instructional creativity and happiness, happiness was under the positive influence of openness and ambiguity allowed, general knowledge, the basis of thinking.