The purpose of this study was to develop a kindergarten teacher education program for parent counseling and to examine its effects by testing the communicative competency of the selected teachers and their self-efficacy as counselors. It''s basically meant to improve the confidence of kindergarten teachers about parent counseling and their counseling skills to ensure the effectiveness of parent counseling.
Two research efforts were made to serve the purpose of the study:
1. To develop a kindergarten teacher education program for parent
counseling.
2. To apply the program to test its effects.

The findings of the study were as follows:
First, literature review, Delphi survey and teacher needs survey were all implemented to make a basic research on how to make up a kindergarten teacher education program for parent counseling, and then the object, objectives, contents, method and evaluation method of the program were selected on the basis of the results. And then a draft of the program was drawn up in detail. After the validity and appropriateness of the draft were tested to see if there were any problems with it, a kindergarten teacher education program for parent counseling was developed by modifying and complementing the draft.
The object of the kindergarten teacher education program for parent counseling that was developed in this way was to boost the confidence of kindergarten teachers about parent counseling and their counseling skills to improve the effectiveness of their parent counseling. The objectives of the program were to learn how to effectively communicate with parents, to acquire knowledge necessary for parent counseling, to foster an ability of supporting a positive parent-child relationship building, and to improve problem-solving skills necessary for parent counseling.
As for the content of the program, this program dealt with the followings to achieve the object and objectives: self-exploration, effective communication, the characteristics of parent-child relationship and assistance for positive relationship building, parent counseling tailored to the characteristics of parents and families, the causes of early childhood problem behaviors and guidance, and the major types of questions asked by parents. Regarding the teaching-learning methods of the program, the program consisted of lecture, presentation, workshop and training. As to evaluation, the communicative competency of teachers and their self-efficacy as counselors were evaluated.
Second, the program was provided for 24 selected teachers in a private kindergarten in the city of Busan to test the effects of it in 10 sessions from December 15, 2015, to February 16, 2016, once a week, two hours each.
To determine the effects of the program on the parent counseling confidence and counseling skills of the teachers, their communicative competency and self-efficacy as counselors were tested before and after the program. After the test results were gathered, a statistical package SPSS 17.0 was employed to make a statistical analysis, and one-way ANCOVA was carried out. The major findings of the study on the effects of the kindergarten teacher education program for parent counseling were as follows:
As a result of analyzing the effects of the program on the communicative competency of the teachers, the program was found to be affective at boosting their communicative competency. To be specific, their communicative competency was tested in several areas that were self-concept, listening, clarity of expression, handling emotion and self- disclosure, and there were statistically significant differences in listening, clarity of expression and self-disclosure, and no statistically significant differences were found in self-concept and handling emotion.
As a result of analyzing the effects of the kindergarten teacher education program for parent counseling on the self-efficacy of the teachers as counselors, the program had an effect on the improvement of the self-efficacy of the teachers as counselors. When their self-efficacy as counselors was tested in terms of two areas that were helping skills and session management, there were statistically significant differences in both areas.
In conclusion, the kindergarten teacher education program for parent counseling was found to be effective at boosting the counseling confidence and counseling skills of the teachers.