Preschool readiness in China : an ecological perspective

Abstract

To achieve the national goal of universal preschool education in China by 2020 (State Council of China, 2010), about 85% of the 17 million newborns in 2017 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2018) shall attend preschool. However, there is neither national guideline for children attending preschool, nor common understanding of what constitutes successful preschool readiness in contemporary Chinese society. Even less is known about the dynamic interactions between preschoolers and their ecological systems - such as the microsystems of their families, preschools, and communities - during the first critical transition in their lives. Furthermore, there is neither a psychometrically sound scale to measure preschool readiness nor longitudinal study focusing on the transition to preschool. All of these gaps have made Chinese preschoolers vulnerable to the challenges and risks associated with the first transition. To fill these gaps, four interrelated studies were conducted to fully understand key stakeholders' perspectives on readiness for preschool (Study One), to develop an age-appropriate and contextually relevant research tool on preschool readiness (Study Two), and to examine the dynamic relationships among child characteristics, family processes, and young children's preschool readiness, concurrently (Study Three) and longitudinally (Study Four). Study One examined the perspectives of Chinese parents, preschool teachers, and principals first through semi-structured interviews and then through a survey study for validation. Findings suggested that preschool readiness consisted of three constructs: ready child, ready family, and ready preschool. It was found that ready child should include not only narrowly-defined academic readiness but also children's self-care abilities and social-emotional readiness. It also raised three concerns pertaining to preschool readiness in China, namely, the balance between care and education, the necessity of prior experiences in early childcare and enrichment classes, and the appropriate age for preschool admission. Study Two developed and validated the Chinese Preschool Readiness Scale (CPRS), through initial item development, exploratory factor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis. The study established a five-dimensional preschool readiness in children: self-care ability and emotional maturity, cognitive and communication skills, social competence, learning dispositions, and classroom rules. The Cronbach reliability and concurrent validity of the scale were both acceptable. Study Three examined the relationship among family processes, child characteristics, and their preschool readiness in a cross-sectional research design, utilizing the CPRS developed in Study Two. The results indicated that family routines and authoritative parenting were positively associated with children's abilities to follow classroom rules, social competence, and learning dispositions, via their self-regulation. Study Four adopted a short-term longitudinal multiple-case research design to examine children and their families' experience during the transition period (three months before and after the children started preschool). The results were employed to triangulate the findings of Study Three and have further suggested two types of states in the transition: static and dynamic. This research indicates that the transition to preschool is both a static and dynamic process involving the complicated interactions among the microsystems of child, family, preschool, and community. Accordingly, an ecological model of transition to preschool is proposed and justified. Implications of the present findings for future studies on preschool readiness in the era of the universal preschool entrance are also proposed.