Early Childhood Education in Chinese Teachers’ Perspective: Comparison
View Latest Version
Please note this is a comparison between Version 2 by Rita Xu and Version 1 by Hui Li.

Early childhood education (ECE) has long been neglected in China, causing the widely reported “3A” problems: accessibility (difficult to enter a kindergarten), affordability (expensive tuition), and accountability (poor quality and no monitoring system). To solve these problems, the central government promulgated

the Several Views on the Development of Preschool Education by the State Council and Outline of China’s National Plan for Medium and Long-term Education Reform and Development

(2010–2020) in 2010, aiming to enable more children to receive adequate and satisfactory ECE services.

  • sustainability
  • early childhood education

1. Sustainability: Towards Quality Early Childhood Education

Sustainability is a process or state that can be maintained for a long time [6][1]. Sustainability in ECE tends to focus on the provision of accessible, flexible, affordable, and high-quality care and education, and, more generally, on how sustainable the ECE “system” is over time [7,8,9][2][3][4]. However, there is no unified definition of the sustainability of ECE, which is generally understood as the perfection and permanence of a series of systems and mechanisms to ensure the development of ECE in the context of achieving high-quality development of education [10,11][5][6]. In other words, the sustainability of ECE refers to the harmony, efficiency, and long-term nature of promoting the high-quality development of ECE. In addition, previous studies found that the factors affecting the sustainability of ECE can be roughly divided into three aspects: micro-, meso-, and macro-.
First, the macro-level focuses on the sustainability of policy support for ECE. The term sustainability is now widely used in ECE policy [12][7], which refers to whether the policy itself could be sustainable and sustain the development of ECE [13,14][8][9]. An effective, sustainable education policy should refresh and innovate with the contemporary economic and social needs over time [15][10]. Sustainable preschool policy depends on various factors, such as the sustainability of the policy provision per se over time, the continued financial input of the government, and the perspectives of key stakeholders in the policy [15,16][10][11].
Second, the meso-level focuses on the sustainability of ECE management. ECE management plays an important role in leading, organising, and monitoring the development of ECE, and its premise is to promote the healthy and sustainable development of ECE [17,18,19][12][13][14]. The construction of the ECE management system should take the public’s diverse needs at its core, and the government, market, and society should make full use of their respective advantages to continue to solve the problems [20,21][15][16].
Finally, the micro-level focuses on the sustainability of the environmental ecology of ECE. Raban & Kilderry [22][17] suggested that what is usually missing from the dialogue on sustainability is a reference to environmental sustainability, where the environmental impact of ECE infrastructure, duplication of resources, and so on would be considered. In addition to the sustainability of the environment ecology, the sustainability of education ecology is also important. As an important part of ECE, it differs over regions, cultures, and times [23][18]. Therefore, ecological sustainability in ECE includes a sustainable environmental and educational ecology [24][19].
In general, sustainability is the core proposition of ECE development. However, previous studies have addressed the sustainability of ECE primarily by analysing past and present government ECE policies, strategies, and their impacts, and predictably examining whether they could be economically and socially sustainable [17,19][12][14]. On the other hand, no research has developed relevant measures to measure the sustainability of ECE from the stakeholders’ perspectives, as evaluation requires the participation of stakeholders [25,26][20][21]. Therefore, based on previous research conclusions and combined with the development status of China’s ECE, this restudyearch has proposed a set of core indicators that affect the development of ECE and then explored the sustainability of ECE from Chinese teachers’ perspectives, aiming to better promote the high-quality development of ECE.

2. Teacher Involvement in Evaluating Early Childhood Education

The most important stakeholders in evaluating the sustainability of ECE in this study should be teachers. However, it is not until the fourth generation of evaluation that the stakeholder viewpoint comes into people’s sight. The fourth generation of evaluation theory determines the stakeholder as an important element of evaluation [27][22]. Furthermore, in the relevant policy texts of ECE in China, such as the Measures for the Supervision and Evaluation of Universal Preschool Education in County Areas [28][23], it is also mentioned that the participation of stakeholders is an important indicator of ECE evaluation, and multiple parties should be encouraged to participate in the evaluation, and third-party evaluation should be actively introduced. According to the stakeholder theory, kindergarten teachers are the key perceivers of ECE development, have direct experience in the provision of ECE services and the development of kindergartens, and play a crucial role in the development of ECE. Reviewing existing studies, wresearchers can find that teachers’ participation in evaluation is usually carried out in the way of teachers’ perception. The evaluation is roughly carried out from the following perspectives: (1) teachers’ perception of educational evaluation tools. For instance, teachers’ perception of the practice and implementation of “continuous assessment”, a comprehensive, systematic, cumulative, and guiding child assessment tool [29,30][24][25]; (2) investigated teachers’ perceptions of national/state programs, including evaluations of the relevant national programs, perceptions of the evaluation process the teachers participated in [31][26]; improved by evaluating teachers’ perceptions of interstate programs and their implementation effects [32][27]; (3) the perception of the status of educational practice. In addition, teachers play an important role in assessing creativity in preschool [33][28] and perceptions of preschool readiness [34][29].
In addition, there are multiple factors influencing teachers’ perception and evaluation. Previous studies have shown that a person’s intention to act is shaped by personal, social, and educational backgrounds [35,36][30][31]. Teachers construct their own knowledge, skills, and job-related knowledge system, which is important for their perception of policy [37][32]. Teaching experience, socioeconomic status and ethnicity are closely related to teachers’ perception of policies and evaluation of students [38][33]. At the school level, trust and support in school leadership significantly impact teachers’ perception of policies [39][34]. Yan et al. [40][35] suggested that personal factors (e.g., education and training, attitudes, skills) and contextual factors (e.g., school environment, external policies, working conditions) can influence teachers’ evaluation practices. All of these studies are based on western background. In addition, some Chinese studies have found that age, teaching age, geographical area, and school grade are important factors affecting teacher perception and evaluation [41,42][36][37]. From previous studies, it can be found that most of the factors affecting teachers’ perception come from subjective, school, and social environments. However, under the unique social context of China, there are still many influencing factors that can be explored, such as teachers’ professional titles. Therefore, this restudyearch assumes that teachers’ age, years of teaching experience, professional titles, and the quality grade, type, and location of their kindergartens affect Chinese teachers’ perception and evaluation.
To sum up, as the gatekeeper of ECE, teachers’ views are very important. However, there are few studies on ECE programmes in China from the perspective of teachers’ perception, and most of them are based on the evaluation of ECE from the parents‘ perspective [2,43,44][38][39][40]. Moreover, teacher evaluation is related to the sustainable development of ECE, the government‘s policy-making, and whether the needs of stakeholders can be met. Therefore, the evaluation of the sustainability of ECE should attach importance to teachers’ participation. Further, to reveal potential differences in teachers’ evaluation of the sustainability of ECE in a better way, this restudyearch employed a person-centred approach (latent profile analysis) that differs from the variable-centred approach, which can uncover more “unobserved” subgroups in large heterogeneous populations [45][41].

References

  1. Sun, G.F.; Zheng, Y.Y. Research on the sustainability of rural anti-poverty end governance under precise poverty alleviation. Theory Reform. 2017, 3, 122–129.
  2. Elliott, A. Early Childhood Education: Pathways to Quality and Equity for All Children; Australian Council for Educational Research Press: Camberwell, Australia, 2006; pp. 6–19.
  3. Press, F.; Hayes, A. Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Thematic Review of Early Childhood Education and Care Policy: Australian Background Report; Commonwealth of Australia: Canberra, Australia, 2000.
  4. Productivity Commission. Childcare and Early Childhood Learning–Issues Paper; Commonwealth of Australia: Canberra, Australia, 2013.
  5. Hou, L.M.; Liu, Q. Improving the Inclusive Guarantee Mechanism to Promote Sustainable Development. China Educ. News 2022, 2, 6.
  6. Zhang, S. Enhancing the Sustainability of Inclusive Preschool Education. People’s Daily 2021, 4, 2.
  7. Department for Education. Childcare Sufficiency and Sustainability in Disadvantaged Areas (Research Report DFE-RR246). 2012. Available online: https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ukgwa/20130321022941/https:/www.education.gov.uk/publications/eOrderingDownload/DFE-RB246.pdf (accessed on 26 February 2022).
  8. Li, H.; Wang, D. Understanding the 15-year free education policies in China: An online study of four cases. Int. J. Chin. Educ. 2014, 3, 250–267.
  9. Li, H.; Wang, D.; Fong, R.W. Editor’s note–Sound bites won’t work: Case studies of 15-year free education in Greater China. Int. J. Chin. Educ. 2014, 3, 161–170.
  10. Jing, M. The ECE Landscape Being Shaped by Cosmopolitanism: An Examination and Evaluation of Policies in Singapore. In Early Childhood Education Politics in Asia Pacific: Advance in Theory and Practice; Li, H., Park, E., Chen, J.J., Eds.; Springer: Singapore, 2016; Volume 35, pp. 221–244.
  11. Xie, S.; Li, H. Accessibility, affordability, accountability, sustainability and social justice of early childhood education in china: A case study of Shenzhen. Child. Youth Serv. Rev. 2020, 118, 105359.
  12. Fan, M.L.; Hong, X.M. The course and direction of the reform of my country’s preschool education management system: Retrospect and prospect of the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up. Res. Presch. Educ. 2019, 1, 22–32.
  13. Li, H.; Lu, J.Q. Legislation for early childhood education: A case study of China. Child. Youth Serv. Rev. 2018, 86, 32–41.
  14. Pang, L.J.; Fan, M.L. “Provincial-level overall planning and county-based” to improve my country’s preschool education management system. Educ. Res. 2013, 34, 24–28.
  15. Deng, C.; Cai, Y.Q. The governance dilemma and solution strategies of private kindergartens—Based on the theory of multi-center governance. Educ. Theory Pract. 2021, 41, 11–16.
  16. Wang, H.Y. Review and Reflection on the Reform of my country’s Preschool Education Management in the 70 Years of New China. J. Nanjing Norm. Univ. 2019, 4, 40–52.
  17. Raban, B.; Kilderry, A. Early Childhood Education Policies in Australia. In Early Childhood Education Politics in Asia Pacific: Advance in Theory and Practice; Li, H., Park, E., Chen, J.J., Eds.; Springer: Singapore, 2016; Volume 35, pp. 1–30.
  18. Woolf, A. Rethinking play and pedagogy in early childhood education: Concepts, contexts and cultures. Emot. Behav. Diffic. 2011, 16, 330.
  19. Liu, Q. Thinking and Countermeasures of Kindergarten Ecological Ethics Education. Early Child. Educ. 2008, 12, 21–24.
  20. Fleischer, D.N.; Christie, C.A. Evaluation use: Results from a survey of U.S. American evaluation association members. Am. J. Eval. 2009, 30, 158–175.
  21. Reineke, R.A. Stakeholder involvement in evaluation: Suggestions for practice. Eval. Pract. 1991, 12, 39–44.
  22. Lincoln, Y.S.; Guba, E.G. The roots of fourth-generation evaluation: Theoretical and methodological origins. In Evaluation Roots: Tracing Theorists’ Views and Influences; Alkin, M., Ed.; Sage: Thousand Oaks, CA, USA, 2004; Volume 1, pp. 225–241.
  23. Central Government of China. The Measures for the Supervision and Evaluation of Universal Preschool Education in County Areas. 2020. Available online: http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2020-03/02/content_5485800.htm (accessed on 27 February 2022).
  24. Modup, A.V.; Sunday, O.M. Teachers’ perception and implementation of continuous assessment practices in secondary schools in Ekiti-State, Nigeria. J. Educ. Pract. 2015, 6, 29.
  25. Yigzaw, A. High school English teachers’ and Students’ perceptions, attitudes and actual practices of continuous assessment. Educ. Res. Rev. 2013, 8, 1489–1498.
  26. Mcduffie, A.R.; Drake, C.; Choppin, J.; Davis, J.D.; Carson, C. Middle school mathematics teachers’ perceptions of the common core state standards for mathematics and related assessment and teacher evaluation systems. Educ. Policy 2015, 31, 1–41.
  27. Rink, J.; Jones, L.; Kirby, K.; Mitchell, M.; Doutis, P. Teacher perceptions of a physical education statewide assessment program. Res. Q. Exerc. Sport 2007, 78, 204–215.
  28. Chien, C.Y.; Hui, A.N.N. Creativity in early childhood education: Teachers’ perceptions in three Chinese societies. Think. Skills Creat. 2010, 5, 49–60.
  29. Ohle, K.A.; Harvey, H.A. Educators’ perceptions of school readiness within the context of a kindergarten entry assessment in Alaska. Early Child Dev. Care 2017, 189, 1859–1873.
  30. Ajzen, I.; Fishbein, M. The influence of attitudes on behavior. In The Handbook of Attitudes; Albarracin, D., Johnson, B.T., Zanna, M.P., Eds.; Lawrence Erlbaum Associates: Mahwah, NJ, USA, 2005; pp. 173–221.
  31. Black, P.; Wiliam, D. Assessment for learning in the classroom. In Assessment and Learning; Gardner, J., Ed.; Sage: London, UK, 2006; pp. 9–25.
  32. Kelchtermans, G. Macropolitics caught up in micropolitics: The case of the policy on quality control in Flanders Belgium. J. Educ. Policy 2007, 22, 471–491.
  33. Llamas, J.M. The Perception Gap: Sociodemographic Factors Affecting Teacher Perceptions of Students in Urban Schools; Proquest Llc.: Ann Arbor, MI, USA, 2012; p. 155.
  34. Tuytens, M.; Devos, G. The influence of school leadership on teachers’ perception of teacher evaluation policy. Educ. Stud. 2010, 36, 521–536.
  35. Yan, Z.; Li, Z.; Panadero, E.; Yang, M.; Yang, L.; Lao, H.L. A systematic review on factors influencing teachers’ intentions and implementations regarding formative assessment. Assess. Educ. Princ. Policy Pract. 2021, 28, 228–260.
  36. Wu, W.S. Research on the relationship between policy perception and policy satisfaction of primary and secondary school teachers. Educ. Res. Exp. 2015, 2, 92–96.
  37. Yan, J. Investigation and Research on the Cognitive Differences between Primary School Principals and Teachers on the Principal’s Teaching Leadership Behavior. Ph.D. Thesis, Yili Normal University, Xinjiang, China, 2020; pp. 5–15.
  38. Zhou, Y.; Jiang, Y.; Zhang, B. Effectiveness of Puhui Kindergartens’ Development in China: A Parental Evaluation. Early Educ. Dev. 2021, 33, 490–507.
  39. Hong, X.; Zhu, W.; Wu, D.; Li, H. Are parents satisfied with early childhood education service in urban china? Empirical evidence from the validation study of the parent satisfaction with educational experiences scale. Early. Educ. Dev. 2020, 31, 200–217.
  40. Fantuzzo, J.; Perry, M.A.; Childs, S. Parent satisfaction with educational experiences scale: A multivariate examination of parent satisfaction with early childhood education programs. Early. Child. Res. Q. 2006, 21, 142–152.
  41. Williams, G.A.; Kibowski, F. Latent class analysis and latent profile analysis. In Handbook of Methodological Approaches to Community-Based Research: Qualitative, Quantitative, and Mixed Methods; Jason, L., Glenwick, D., Eds.; Oxford University Press: New York, NY, USA, 2016; pp. 143–151.
More
© Text is available under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)
Video Production Service
Feedback