Relationship of psychosocial stimulation at home and learning process in school with multiple intelligences of kindergarten students at Pamulang district in South Tangerang city.

Abstract

Preschool children are the age group in a unique development process, because it is the sensitive period or the golden age. This period is the best time to give a strong provision to the child because in this period, the child’s brain grows 50 percent of overall brain development during his or her lifetime. Under this condition, this study was conducted in order to identify the characteristics of schools and preschool learning process, to identify multiple intelligence preschool level, to analyze the relation between children’s characteristics, family characteristics, and psychosocial stimulation and the multiple intelligence preschool level, and to analyze the relationship between learning process and level of intelligence of the preschoolers. This study used cross-sectional design study and conducted in four schools in the District of South Tangerang Pamulang from April-May 2012. The location of the research was in the District of South Tangerang city Pamulang. Eight schools represented South Tangerang District Pamulang were chosen randomly. Selected sample (purposive ) from eight schools refer to several criteria: ( 1 ) the number of school students are more than 100 children each year , (2 ) the schools are for upper middle class, (3 ) the learning process is done using a central system, (4 ) the schools are non- religious kindergarten and religious kindergarten. Other than those, the criteria of the samples in this study are children at kindergarten class B from selected schools aged 5 to 6 years. Based on these criteria, the samples are elected, they are four schools, two non-religious kindergartens and two religious kindergartens with 30 students each. The type of data used are primary and secondary data. Primary data (characteristics of children and families , psychosocial stimulation, learning process, and multiple intelligences) were collected by questionnaires and observation. Whereas secondary data (number of children, school profiles, public schools and state school characteristic) were collected from the data from the school. Psychosocial stimulation Questionnaire using Home Observation for Measurement of Environmental ( HOME ) Inventory was developed by Caldwell , (1984 ) with α = 0.777 consists of 55 statements. The questionnaire on learning process comprises 36 questions. The questions on multiple intelligence questionnaire developed by Hastuti (2006 ) with α = 0.793 consists of 40 items, each statement consists of 5 questions covering gross motor, fine motor, language, mathematical , interpersonal , intrapersonal , musical and visual-spatial. The data were analyzed using the analysis of descriptive statistics and inferential statistical analysis. Inferential statistical analysis used is the Spearman correlation test and Pearson, as well as different test. Based on the distribution of children, the proportion of children in this study is the girls ( 57.5 % ) and the boys ( 42.5 % ). The family characteristics are three-quarters of fathers have an average age of 38.45 years and half of the mother are at an average age of 34.45 years. Average family income is Rp 11,717,500 per month. Psychosocial stimulations given by the parents are in high and medium categories, 67,5 % for the high category and 30,1 % for the medium one. This means there is no low category psychosocial stimulation. Learning process both in public kindergarten and religion kindergarten is in high category that is 100.0 percent. Multiple intelligences in public kindergarten and religion kindergarten are at the high category (98.0 percent). The remaining 2.0 percent is in the medium category. Based on the results of this research, it seems that there is no significant relationship between the characteristics of the student and psychosocial stimulation given by the parents. On family characteristics, there are several variables that significantly correlated with psychosocial stimulation, such as father's education, mother's education, mother's income and family income. The results showed that the higher the parents' education, the better the psychosocial stimulation given to their children. It is also a positive relationship between families income with psychosocial stimulation. There is no significant difference in psychosocial stimulation based on the type of school. Based on Spearman correlation, there is no significant correlation between characteristics of families and children’s multiple intelligences. It is also shown in general psychosocial stimulation is not related to the learning process and multiple intelligences. However, there are psychosocial dimensions which are associated with the stimulation of multiple intelligences, they are exemplary dimensions (Modelling) and variations in stimulus.