초등학교 교사의 아동학대 신고 의도 및 행동에 영향을 미치는 요인

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to examine the factors associated with reporting intention and behavior in relation to child abuse among elementary school teachers in Korea based on the Theory of Planned Behavior. The Scale, which includes demographics, preparation level of training, school characteristics, reporting-related behavior, reporting intention, knowledge, attitudes, subjective norms, and self-efficacy, was used to collect the data. A total of 292 teachers provided data. The result of this study is as follows. First, even though the teachers had suspected the child abuse, 16.3% of them reported, whilst 83.7% of them did not. In terms of teachers’ reporting intention, the vignettes of very serious cases were higher than the vignettes of less serious cases. The teachers’ reporting intention of sexual abuse was the highest among the types of child abuse, and it was followed by physical abuse, neglect and emotional abuse. Second, knowledge, attitudes, subjective norms, and self-efficacy, all of these variables had positive impacts on teachers’ reporting intention. Meanwhile, self-efficacy, reporting intention, and the support level of specialists also had positive impacts on reporting behavior. Additionally, women or postgraduate teachers had a higher possibility to make a report than men or undergraduate teachers. These findings suggest that increasing self-efficacy through education and more thorough training about identifying and reporting on child abuse is more important than anything else for detecting abused children at an early stage.