Abstract:
Children‟s social-emotional development provide valuable information about how children are progressing in areas such as forming relationships, regulating and expressing their emotions, and showing empathy toward others. This study investigated the effectiveness of day care centers in imparting social-emotional skills to children aged 4-6 years as prerequisite for successful schooling later. The effectiveness was measured by comparing social-emotional development of children enrolled to daycare centers against those staying at home. In doing so, the study also assessed the role of teachers/caregivers in fostering social-emotional well-being of these children and the role environment in developing positive social-emotional well-being. The study involved 188preschoolersin which 112were those who have been enrolled in one of the 10 selected daycare centers and the remaining 76 were those who are still staying at home. For the purpose of triangulating the findings, the study also interviewed ten (10) conveniently selected teachers from these daycare centers. Data from children were collected using an adopted socio-emotional competence scale developed by Zhou and Ee (2012). Interviews were conducted to teachers for the purpose of assisting in the filling of the likert scale. Statistical significant p-value was calculated and used for interpretation of results in a p≤ .05 and confidence level of 0.95 formats. An analysis of SPSS independent samples t-test based on whether a child stays at home or enrolled in a daycare center at (α) =0.05 produced a p of 0.04 and a t value of 0.57, hence rejecting the null hypothesis (Ho1).The p=.04implied that there is statistically significant difference in socio-emotional maturity between preschoolers enrolled in daycare centres and those staying at home in favor of those enrolled in the centers. The dimension measured included self-awareness, social awareness, self- management, relationship management, and responsible decision making.
