Parents' Perceptions of Early Childhood Education Learning in the COVID-19 Pandemic Period

Abstract

The problem of online learning in early childhood education during the Covid-19 pandemic was not only experienced by teachers, but parents also experienced difficulties, including the delivery of material to children through their parents. The purpose of this study was to obtain information about the perceptions of parents of early childhood education students regarding the applications used by teachers during learning at home, online forms of learning provided by the teacher, parental assistance when learning is carried out at home, the level of difficulty when learning is carried out at home, the material provided by the teacher, obstacles/constraints when learning at home, following the form of learning that parents expect during learning at home. The method used in this research is a descriptive qualitative method with data sources obtained from 62 parents of children aged 3-6 years from the provinces of West Java, Central Java, East Java, and South Kalimantan. The data collection instrument used was a questionnaire in the form of a Google Form. The results of this study show parental perceptions that the form of early childhood education learning materials during the Covid-19 pandemic is in the form of providing material, assignments, and direct conversations via video using the WhatsApp, YouTube, and zoom applications. There are several obstacles, namely limited internet networks, difficulties facing children in doing assignments, and explaining learning materials. The form of learning expected by parents includes teachers preparing interesting activity materials that can improve children's life skills and creativity by using a variety of existing technologies. Further research is in terms of the effectiveness of the application of making interactive learning videos for early childhood.