Online assessment of the knowledge of folk traditions in preschool children

Abstract

During pre-school music education based on the Kodály concept, children learn a great deal about folk traditions and their characteristics. Activities related to the preservation of traditions can develop children's diverse intellectual, emotional and social skills. The integration of digital tools into the pre-school methodology is both a new opportunity and a challenge for pre-school teachers. In our study, we used eDia, the Electronic Diagnostic Measurement System, the main aim of which is to support the work of kindergarten teachers through computer-based testing. In our research, we aimed to establish the extent to which preschool children are familiar with folk traditions by means of an online test we developed. The results show that the reliability of the overall test is good (Cronbach alpha = 0.885), with the highest reliability among the subtests being the that on spring traditions (Cronbach alpha = 0.725). The average performance of the children on the test was 71.5%. The best performance was achieved on the autumn holiday subtest, which was solved 84% of the time. Christmas (45%), Easter (36%) and carnival (10%) were the most popular holidays among the children. Most of them like to sing (55%) and a third of them like it a lot. There are few empirical studies on the knowledge and methodology of folk customs and traditions in pre-school education. It was this gap that we hoped to fill in this study.